Earth and Planetary Science Letters 567 (2021) 116987

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Earth and Planetary Science Letters

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Indian continental lithosphere and related volcanism beneath

Myanmar: Constraints from local earthquake tomography
Guangli Zhang a,c , Yumei He a,b,c,∗ , Yinshuang Ai a,b,c,∗∗ , Mingming Jiang a,b,c ,
Chit Thet Mon a,c,d , Guangbing Hou a , Myo Thant e,f , Kyaing Sein g
a
Key Laboratory of Earth and Planetary Physics, Institute of Geology and Geophysics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, 100029, Beijing, China
b
Innovation Academy for Earth Science, Chinese Academy of Sciences, 100029, Beijing, China
c
University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, 100049, Beijing, China
d
Department of Geology, Dagon University, 11422, Yangon, Myanmar
e
Department of Geology, Yangon University, 11041, Yangon, Myanmar
f
Myanmar Earthquake Committee, Hlaing Universities’ Campus, Hlaing Township, 11052, Yangon, Myanmar
g
Myanmar Geosciences Society, Yangon, Myanmar

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: The Indian plate descends obliquely eastward beneath the Eurasian plate along the Burmese arc. Previous
Received 5 November 2020 tomographic results revealed a high-velocity structure that plunges eastward into the deep mantle
Received in revised form 29 April 2021 beneath Myanmar. However, the shallow structure beneath Myanmar remains unclear due to the lack
Accepted 1 May 2021
of local seismic observations. Based on the local seismic data recorded by a newly deployed dense
Available online 13 May 2021
array in Myanmar, we obtain a three-dimensional velocity structure of the crust and lithospheric mantle
Editor: H. Thybo
above 100 km by employing the double-difference tomography method. Our imaging results support the
Keywords: existence of the Indian continental lithosphere to a depth of at least 100 km with a dip angle of ∼25◦
continental collision beneath the Indo-Burma Ranges and the Central Myanmar Basin. At the deep end of the continental slab,
Indian continental lithosphere the high V P , high V s and rather low average V P / V S ratio indicate that the lowermost portion of the
local earthquake tomography crust from 80 to 120 km may have experienced partially metamorphic eclogitization. The imaging results
Myanmar also provide direct seismic evidence for the origin of the last Monywa volcanic activity in the Holocene.
This subduction-related volcanism is characterized by a prominent low V s anomaly in the lithospheric
mantle, which indicates continental lithosphere dehydration and partial melting in mantle wedge. These
findings provide new seismic constraints to understand the continental collision system between India
and Eurasia under Myanmar and the related magmatic activities of the Monywa volcano.
© 2021 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction Liang et al., 2016), whereas the existence of a continental litho-

Following the continent-continent collision between the Indian
and Eurasian plates beginning in the Eocene, the large-scale Indian
continental lithosphere subducted under Eurasia along its conver-
gent boundary (Capitanio et al., 2010; Replumaz et al., 2010; In-
galls et al., 2016). In the western Himalayan syntaxis and central
Himalaya, the fronts of the subducted Indian continental litho-
sphere have been well imaged beneath the Hindu Kush and Ti-
betan Plateau using seismic tomography (e.g., Kufner et al., 2017;
* The second corresponding author.
** The first corresponding author. Correspondence to: Key Laboratory of Earth and
Planetary Physics, Institute of Geology and Geophysics, Chinese Academy of Sci-
ences, 100029, Beijing, China.
E-mail addresses: ymhe@mail.igcas.ac.cn (Y. He), ysai@mail.iggcas.ac.cn (Y. Ai).
sphere in the eastern Himalayan syntaxis is still controversial.
Myanmar, located at the southern edge of the eastern Hi-
malayan syntaxis, connects the ongoing continental collision along
the Himalayas in the north to the oceanic subduction under An-
daman Sea in the south (Pesicek et al., 2010). In Myanmar, the
distribution of intermediate-depth seismicity outlines an eastward
Benioff zone extending down to a depth of ∼150 km (e.g., Ni et
al., 1989; Rao and Kalpna, 2005; Mon et al., 2020). However, the
seismic velocity structure along this region remains enigmatic. Pre-
vious teleseismic tomographic results have revealed a high-velocity
structure related to subducted plate reaching down to the deep
mantle but with very limited resolution at shallow depths (e.g., Li
et al., 2008; Koulakov, 2011). Moreover, the regional-scale seismic
tomographic results have not yet provided unequivocal constraints
on the detailed shape and nature of the subducted plate due to
the sparse seismic stations (Thiam et al., 2017; Raoof et al., 2017;

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.epsl.2021.116987
0012-821X/© 2021 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
G. Zhang, Y. He, Y. Ai et al. Earth and Planetary Science Letters 567 (2021) 116987

Fig. 1. Simplified tectonic of the Myanmar region, showing major tectonic blocks, seismic stations and major faults. The main geological units are delimited by different
colors. In particular, the dark green color indicates the Wuntho-Monywa-Popa arc (WMPA), and the pink color delineates the Mogok Metamorphic Belt (MMB). The black
triangles show the seismic stations in the CMGSMO seismic network. The major faults plotted including the Churachandpur-Mao Fault (CMF), Kabaw Fault (KBF), and Sagaing
Fault (SGF), are plotted with north-south trending red lines. The west-east trending dotted blue lines and red line indicate the locations of the profiles shown in Fig. 7 and
Fig. 8, respectively. The inset map in the lower right corner shows the location of the study region in the Indo-Eurasia collision system. (For interpretation of the colors in
the figure(s), the reader is referred to the web version of this article.)

Wang et al., 2019). Zheng et al. (2020) detected the entire conti-
nental crust along ∼22◦ N beneath Myanmar with receiver func-
tion imaging; however, the three-dimensional velocity structure
of the continental slab remains unclear, and the related tectonic
regime and the origin of volcanism are also inconclusive.
In the context of plate collision and subduction, Myanmar can
be mainly divided into four tectonic regimes from west to east:
the Indo-Burma Ranges (IBR), the Central Myanmar Basin (CMB),
the Mogok Metamorphic Belt (MMB), and the Shan Plateau (SP)
(Fig. 1). In the CMB, the Monywa volcano (MWV) occupies the cen-
ter of the north-south trending Wuntho-Monywa-Popa arc (WMPA,
in Fig. 1), which divides the CMB into a western forearc basin and
an eastern back-arc basin (Cai et al., 2019). The origin of the MWV
is still under debate. Some models suggest a deep origin from the
asthenosphere induced by slab rollback (Lee et al., 2016) or mantle
flow from a slab window followed by slab tear and “break-off” (Li
et al., 2019; Zhang et al., 2020). Others prefer a subduction-related
origin due to the dehydration of the subducted Indian lithosphere
(Gardiner et al., 2015; Licht et al., 2020). However, direct structural
evidence from seismic imaging is still lacking, so a high-resolution
local earthquake tomography study is urgently needed to map the
lithospheric structure present beneath Myanmar to constrain the
origin of the MWV.
In 2016, under the China-Myanmar Geophysical Survey in the
Myanmar Orogen (CMGSMO) project, the first portable seismic
array was deployed in north-central Myanmar, with more than
one and a half years of seismic monitoring. In this study, based
on the newly recorded dense array data, we imaged the detailed
3-D lithospheric velocity structure of central Myanmar with the
double-difference tomography method (Zhang and Thurber, 2003,
2006). New local imaging results are able to characterize the high-
resolution velocity structure of the crust and lithospheric mantle
beneath Myanmar, which can help us better understand the sub-
duction mechanism beneath Myanmar and the related volcanism
of the MWV.
2. New dataset for local earthquake tomography
The CMGSMO seismic network consists of 71 portable broad-
band seismic stations (Fig. 1), with an average station spacing of
∼15 km for the main-line profile (38 stations, mainly along ∼22◦
N) and ∼30 km for the other sporadic stations (33 stations) around
the profile. From June 2016 to February 2018, the CMGSMO seis-
mic network recorded more than one and a half years of continu-
ous seismic data.
To build the seismic dataset for local earthquake tomography,
the short-term average to long-term average (STA/LTA) algorithm
is used to scan and identify local earthquakes from the continu-
ous waveform data. Here, we only select events that are recorded
by eight or more stations to ensure the reliability of earthquake
detection, and then the first P- and S-arrivals of each event are
manually picked (Mon et al., 2020). All events included in the final
catalog are required to have at least six P-picks and three S-picks,
and the root mean square (RMS) residual of these picks is less than
3 s relative to the calculated travel time using CRUST 1.0 (Laske et
al., 2013). Using these criteria, we obtained 2316 local earthquakes,

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G. Zhang, Y. He, Y. Ai et al.
Fig. 2. The ray coverage in the study area from the map view shown in (a) and cross-section view shown in (b) and (c). The cyan dots indicate the earthquakes used for
inversion and the white triangles represent the seismic stations in the CMGSMO network. The dark blue lines show the ray path in the local earthquake tomography dataset.
(d) The number of earthquakes at different depths.
including 45674 P arrivals and 33308 S arrivals. Fig. 2 shows the
ray paths of these phases, in which we can see that the ray cov-
erage inside the study area is sufficiently high at shallow depth.
Though the ray coverage decreases with the increasing depth due
to the distribution of earthquakes, a considerable subset of earth-
quakes is distributed in the depth range of 50–100 km (Fig. 2d),
which can help us to illuminate the subducted lithospheric struc-
ture beneath Myanmar.
3. Tomographic details
Placing the picked first-arrivals into a time-distance axis, the P-
and S-arrivals are linearly regressed to determine the average V P
and V S (Fig. 3a). With this high-quality dataset, we perform local
earthquake tomography by utilizing the double-difference tomog-
raphy algorithm (tomoDD). The velocity model is parameterized
with 15 × 19 × 15 nodes in the west, north and depth directions
and smoothly interpolated with spline patches to form a contin-
uous velocity field. The vertical interval of the nodes is 10 km,
whereas the horizontal node spacing is 26 km, which roughly
equals the average station spacing. The starting 1-D velocity model
for tomoDD inversion is derived from the VELEST program (Kissling
et al., 1994). To obtain the optimal 1-D velocity model, different in-
put models were evaluated by calculating the travel time residuals
between the synthetic data and the real data (Fig. S1). Then, the
1-D velocity model with the lowest RMS for both P- and S-arrivals
was obtained (Fig. 3b). In Figs. 3c–d, the perturbations between
the P-arrivals and synthetic data range mainly from −2.5 s to 2.5
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Earth and Planetary Science Letters 567 (2021) 116987
s with an RMS value of 1.09 s, while those of the S-arrivals range
from −5 s to 5 s and have an RMS value of 1.65 s.
Regularization parameters including smoothing and damping
values should be determined to find the optimum balance between
model roughness and data variance (Zhang and Thurber, 2003).
Here, we use the trade-off curve to obtain the optimal smooth-
ing and damping value by trialing different combinations of these
two parameters, and joint inversion of both event locations and
velocity structures is performed only once for each combination.
By analyzing the trade-off curve, the optimal damping value and
smoothing value are determined in the vicinity of the point with
the maximum curvature (Fig. 4).
As the tomoDD method combines both the absolute and differ-
ential data between earthquake pairs, different weighting scenarios
during inversion are employed for these two types of data to hi-
erarchically determine the velocity structure (Table S1). We tested
different scenarios and found that a higher weight to the abso-
lute data at the beginning of inversion followed by adding more
weight to differential data in the later iterations has the lower RMS
values of 0.1958 s. This means that the large-scale velocity struc-
ture is first resolved by the absolute data, and then the detailed
structure near the source region is refined mainly by the differen-
tial data. Thus, this method can obtain more accurate results near
the source region as the differential process reduces the picking
errors and concentrates the ray-path derivatives near the source
region, which is particularly sensitive to the subducting structure
where there are more events inside and in the surrounding area
(Zhang et al., 2019). Compared to the imaging results of V P and
G. Zhang, Y. He, Y. Ai et al. Earth and Planetary Science Letters 567 (2021) 116987

Fig. 3. (a) The picked P- and S-arrivals. (b) The obtained 1-D velocity model by VELEST. (c–d) Time residuals between the synthetic data based on the 1-D velocity model and
the real data.

Fig. 4. Trade-off curve of the regularization parameters. The curvature of the trade-off curve is also shown with gray dashed lines (with arbitrary amplitude scaling). (a)
Relationship between the solution norm and residual norm across different damping situations is obtained with a fixed smoothing value of 20. The solution norm means
that both earthquake location and slowness variables are included in the norm calculation of the model variance. The optimal damping parameter of 150 is selected and
marked in red. (b) Relationship between the slowness norm and residual norm in different smoothing situations obtained with a fixed damping value of 150. The slowness
norm means that only the slowness is included for the norm calculation of the model variance. The optimal smoothing parameter of 20 is selected and marked in red. To be
more intuitive, the coordinate ranges in Fig. 4(a) and (b) have been normalized to the 0–1 range.

V S , the V P / V S ratio is more sensitive to the existence of fluids
(Takei, 2002). Thus, we inverted V P and V S separately with the
same event phases and then divided the inverted results to obtain
the V P / V S ratio to minimize the errors caused by different sizes
of P- and S-wave datasets (Figs. 7g–i).
To identify the relatively well-resolved areas in our model do-
main, we calculate the derivative weight sum (DWS) values and
perform the checkerboard test on both P- and S-wave velocity
models. The DWS is a weighted operator representing the sum
of partial differentials of travel time and slowness in grid nodes,
which indicates the density of ray sampling. The DWS values of
the P- and S-waves throughout the whole imaging area are shown
in Fig. S3 and Fig. S4. In addition, the checkerboard resolution test
is also performed to provide another constraint for model relia-
bility. Regularly alternating velocity anomalies with amplitudes of
±10% relative to the initial 1-D velocity model shown in Fig. 3b,
which are slightly less than the maximum amplitudes in the real
data, are specified at each grid node as the “true” input. Gaussian
noise is also added to the synthetic travel times with a zero mean
and standard deviations of 0.5 s for P-waves and 0.8 s for S-waves.
Then, the synthetic data are inverted with the same inversion
scheme and parameters as those used in real data inversion, in-
cluding the joint inversion of both event locations and slowness.
The recovered results of the checkerboard tests on P-wave and
S-wave data are shown in Figs. S5 and S6, respectively. The ro-
bustness of our imaging results can be quantitatively measured by
computing the DWS values and analyzing the checkerboard test.
Based on these two evaluation indicators, the imaging areas where

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G. Zhang, Y. He, Y. Ai et al.
Fig. 5. Hypocenter distribution of the relocated earthquakes in 3-D view. Dots in different colors indicate earthquakes at different depth ranges. (a) and (b) represent different
perspectives. The black triangles show the seismic stations in the CMGSMO seismic network. The main faults, including the Churachandpur-Mao Fault (CMF), Kabaw Fault
(KBF), and Sagaing Fault (SGF), are shown in red lines.
the DWS is 100 or greater and the checkerboard recovery is greater
than 75% are outlined by the white dashed lines acting as the reli-
able imaging zone (Figs. 6 and 7). However, checkerboard recovery
can be regarded as being on the optimistic side of the “truth”
because the same parametrization has been applied to the recov-
ered model and the input model. Considering that the conventional
tightly spaced checkerboard may mislead the impression of struc-
tural distortion or smearing caused by data coverage (Rawlinson
and Spakman, 2016), discrete spike tests that have the same scale
length and amplitude of such anomalies were also performed and
are shown in Figs. S7 and S8.
4. Results and interpretations
4.1. Crustal velocity structure
The absolute V P and V S models at crustal scale are displayed
in Figs. 6a–c and Fig. 7. In the upper-to-mid crust from 5 to 15 km,
the variation in V P is consistent with the shallow tectonic units of
central Myanmar marked by two evident tectonic boundaries. One
boundary is along the KBF, which exhibits the diving line of the
low V P anomaly (3.5–4.0 km/s) and the high V P anomaly (5.5–6.0
km/s), corresponding to the eastern thick sedimentary layer be-
neath the CMB and the western basement rocks beneath the IBR.
The other boundary is the WMPA, with a strong anomaly (6.0–6.5
km/s) below this volcanic arc separating the CMB into two north-
south trending low velocity zones (Figs. 6a–b). These two low V P
anomalous zones, associated with the low V S in Fig. S9 and the
high V P / V S ratios in Fig. 7, correspond to the forearc basin and
the back-arc basin in Myanmar.
The low V P anomaly beneath the forearc basin is 20–30 km
thick, much thicker than the low V P anomaly (10–15 km) beneath
the back-arc basin. Lower V S and higher V P / V S ratios are also ob-
served beneath the forearc basin. To further validate the structure
of the forearc basin in our velocity model, we compare our results
at shallow depths with the previous seismic reflection profile in
the Chindwin Basin (Böker et al., 2019). This profile is located be-
tween the western margin of the Burma microplate to the west
and the WMPA to the east, with a 120 km long extension along
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Earth and Planetary Science Letters 567 (2021) 116987
∼23◦ N through the Indaw anticline, which shows the detailed ge-
ometry and layered structure of the forearc basin (Fig. 8a). The
thickness of the forearc basin, which is defined as 20–30 km in our
velocity models, agrees remarkably well with that of the basin in
the reflection profile (Fig. 8b). The extension along the west-east
direction of the forearc basin is also consistent with the reflec-
tion profile between the KBF and the WMPA. Moreover, the layered
structure shown in Fig. 8a of the basin corresponds well with the
velocity variations in our results.
At 5 km depth, V P is relatively higher along the WMPA than
in the neighboring low V P zones between the two basins, and
reaches the highest value of ∼6.5 km/s (Fig. 6a) beneath the MWV.
At 35 km depth, a rather low V P anomaly of ∼7.5 km/s occurs be-
low the MWV, with a low V s anomaly of ∼4.2 km/s, hinting at the
possible existence of arc magma. The absolute V s in the horizontal
slices, which are comparable to V P , can be seen in Fig. S9.
4.2. Mantle velocity structure
In lithospheric mantle, a prominent north-south trending low
V P belt is imaged beneath the IBR and CMB along the intermed-
iate-depth seismicity (Figs. 6d–f). This low V P velocity belt (∼7.5
km/s) exists at depths from 35 to 85 km and gradually moves east-
ward as the depth increases. In Fig. 7, this low V P anomaly (LV1)
is projected as an ∼30 km thick slab extending to a depth of ∼85
km with a dip angle of ∼25◦ in the vertical profiles. A slight de-
crease in the thickness of LV1 can also be observed from north to
south. The V P /V s ratio is rather high (1.8–1.9) along this low V P
anomaly, whereas a significantly low V P / V S zone is found along
the intermediate-depth seismicity at the lower boundary of LV1
(inside the blue dotted rectangles in Figs. 7g–i), where V P (∼8.2
km/s) and V S (∼4.6 km/s) are slightly higher than LV1 but similar
to the surrounding lithospheric mantle.
Starting at a depth of 55 km, a high V P anomaly (∼8.5 km/s)
accompanies the LV1 anomaly on the west side and moves east-
ward as the depth increases (Figs. 6d–f). This high V P anomaly
(HV) dips at the same angle as the LV1 anomaly and extends to
deeper depths (>100 km). The couple of LV1 and HV indicates
that they may be an intact slab beneath Myanmar (Fig. 7). More-
G. Zhang, Y. He, Y. Ai et al. Earth and Planetary Science Letters 567 (2021) 116987

Fig. 6. Absolute velocity of the P-wave in the horizontal slices at the 5 km, 15 km, 35 km, 55 km, 65 km and 85 km depth levels. The main faults including the Churachandpur-
Mao Fault (CMF), Kabaw Fault, and Sagaing Fault, are shown as black lines. The dashed black lines delineate the Wutho-Monywa-Popa arc (WMPA). The black drawn triangles
are seismic stations, and the gray dots indicate earthquakes located at the imaging depth level within the range of ±5 km. The marked volcanoes are the Monywa volcano
and Singu volcano. The areas inside the white dashed lines are the relatively reliable imaging areas we sketched.

over, a remarkably low V P anomaly (LV2) appears below the MWV
at depths ranging from 35 to 100 km in the CC’ profile. This low
V P anomaly (7.5–8 km/s) exists on the east side of the LV1 and HV
and connects with the low V P anomaly at a depth of 35 km.
5. Discussion
5.1. Resolution test of the imaging results
The reliability of velocity anomalies in Section 4 can be eval-
uated by resolution test. In this section, the absolute V P imaging
results along profile CC’ in Fig. 7c are chosen as the real abso-
lute velocity model (Fig. 9a), and the relative V P results compared
to the initial velocity model (Fig. 3b) are set as the real relative
velocity model (Fig. 9b). To create the synthetic input model, we
directly used the 1-D velocity in Fig. 3b as the crustal input model
and mimicked the geometry, penetrating depth, and intensity of
the main velocity anomalies in the lithospheric mantle (i.e., LV1,
HV, and LV2) in Fig. 9b. To minimize the impact of precondition-
ing, a finer-scale parametrization with 2 × 2 km node spacing is
applied to the input model, which allows us to construct veloc-
ity anomalies much finer than the inversion grid (Rawlinson and
Spakman, 2016). Thus, LV1 is set as an ∼30 km thick anomaly with
a V P of 7.5 km/s, while the HV anomaly has a thickness of >80
km with a V P of 8.7 km/s and the same dip angle of ∼25◦ be-
neath it (Fig. 9c). The LV2 anomaly with a V P of 7.5 km/s (Fig. 9g)
simulates the upwelling geometry in Fig. 7c beneath the MWV.
In Figs. 9c–g, we tested five different end-member slab models
by varying the penetrating depth (80/120 km), breaking-off point,
thickness (30/10 km) of LV1 and the existence of LV2. The syn-
thetic travel-time data were first calculated based on these input
models and then used for restoration inversion with the same in-
version scheme as the real data. Gaussian random noise was also
added to each selected arrival with a mean of zero and a stan-
dard deviation of 0.5 s. The synthetic output results are plotted
in the right column of Figs. 9c–g. In the crust, all the velocity
structures can be well recovered. In the lithospheric mantle, the
recovered LV1 anomaly appears as a continuous low-velocity zone
with a well recovered geometry (Figs. 9c and 9g), which is similar
to the imaging results shown in Fig. 9a. Even when LV1 penetrates
deeper to a depth of 120 km (Fig. 9d), it can be clearly illumi-
nated inside the resolution limit. A breaking-off point has also
been included in the slab model at depths ranging from 50–70
km where earthquakes are poorly distributed, and the break of the
slab can be clearly seen in the recovered LV1 anomaly (Fig. 9e).
The model with an LV1 thickness of 10 km (Fig. 9f) can be no-
tably distinguished from the models with an LV1 thickness of 30
km (Fig. 9c–e) with poor LV1 recovery. Moreover, the recovered HV
anomaly beneath LV1 is slightly vague at the edge of the resolu-
tion limit due to the insufficient distribution of ray paths below
it.
Comparing the synthetic output with the real velocity model
(Fig. 9a), the anomalies in LV1, HV and LV2 are shown to be re-
liable. The LV1 anomaly (∼30 km thick and V P of 7.2–8 km/s)
extends to a depth of 80 km in the lithospheric mantle beneath

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G. Zhang, Y. He, Y. Ai et al. Earth and Planetary Science Letters 567 (2021) 116987

Fig. 7. Imaging results of V P , V S , and the V P /V s ratio in three vertical profiles. The vertical profiles start from 23◦ N to 22◦ N at an interval of 0.5◦ , totaling three east-west
trending vertical profiles marked as profiles AA’, BB’, and CC’ (see Fig. 1 for locations). (a–c) Absolute V P results in the vertical profiles. (d–f) Absolute V S results in the
vertical profiles. (g–i) The V P /V s ratio in the vertical profiles. The gray dots indicate the earthquakes relocated at the imaging latitude within the range of ± 0.125◦ . The
areas inside the white dashed lines are the relatively reliable imaging areas we sketched. The dashed black lines indicate the Moho depths obtained from CRUST 1.0 (Laske
et al., 2013). IBR: Indo-Burma Ranges; KBF: Kabaw Fault; SGF: Sagaing Fault; MWV: Monywa volcano.

Fig. 8. Comparison between our results and the seismic reflection profile. The seismic reflection profile in (a) is modified from Böker et al. (2019). The location of the profile
is given as a red line in Fig. 1. Subfigure (b) shows the S-wave velocity model beneath the forearc basins at the same location along 23◦ N between the KBF and the WMPA.
The black lines represent contours of the S-wave velocity.

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G. Zhang, Y. He, Y. Ai et al.
Myanmar, and the HV anomaly is present beneath it with the same
dipping angle of ∼25◦ . There also exists an LV2 anomaly beneath
the MWV with a lower V P of ∼7.5 km/s. Similar resolution tests
of V S imaging results are shown in Fig. S10.
5.2. Indian continental lithosphere beneath Myanmar
In our imaging results, there is an eastward-dipping low-
velocity anomaly LV1 with a thickness of ∼30 km and a dip angle
of ∼25◦ extending to a depth of 80 km beneath the IBR and the
CMB (Fig. 7). The morphology and velocity characteristics (∼30
km thickness, V P ∼7.5 km/s, and V S ∼4.2 km/s) of the LV1 indi-
cate that it is continental crust, which is highly consistent with
previous receiver function imaging results (Zheng et al., 2020).
The thickness of this crustal layer in the mantle fits well with
the northeastern Indian crust (Islam et al., 2011; Bora and Baruah,
2012). Moreover, the V P values slightly above 7.2 km/s and V S val-
ues slightly above 4.0 km/s at depths ≥35 km may also come from
rocks with compositions typical of the northeast Indian crust in
the Bengal Basin (Mitra et al., 2018). Furthermore, a high-velocity
anomaly HV with the same dip angle as LV1 is found beneath the
crust. Intermediate depth seismicity occurs at depths up to 150
km below Myanmar (Fig. 5), and these earthquakes are thought to
correspond well with LV1 and HV. Although the thickness of HV is
uncertain, it is still reasonable to interpret the LV1 and HV anoma-
lies as the Indian continental lithosphere according to their intact
morphology and the seismicity along them (Fig. 5).
As the continental lithosphere is generally considered too buoy-
ant to actively drive subduction, an external force is required to
explain the current continental lithosphere beneath Myanmar. Pre-
vious teleseismic tomography has revealed a high-velocity anomaly
in the deep mantle dipping at ∼60◦ , which is interpreted as the
subducted Indian oceanic lithosphere (e.g., Li et al., 2008; Koulakov,
2011). Although the continental lithosphere may be less dense
than the underlying mantle, it can be triggered by the attachment
of a denser oceanic slab after ocean closure (Capitanio et al., 2010).
Thus, we conclude that the Indian continental lithosphere may ex-
tend to a depth of at least 100 km beneath Myanmar and may
have been pulled down by earlier oceanic subduction.
In Fig. 6 and Fig. 7, a slight decrease in the thickness of LV1
can be observed from north to south, which may indicate the pos-
sible transition from continental Indian lithosphere to transitional-
oceanic lithosphere in further south (Mallick et al., 2020). Com-
bined with the deep oceanic slab revealed by previous imaging
results (e.g., Li et al., 2008; Koulakov, 2011), a three-dimensional
continent-to-ocean transition may exist in this subduction zone. As
the subduction below the IBR is still ongoing with an ∼18 mm/yr
convergence rate (Steckler et al., 2016), the continued difference in
the buoyancies of the continental and oceanic lithosphere in this
transition zone may trigger slab tearing and break-off (Zhang et al.,
2020). This may occur at a deeper depth as the intermediate depth
seismicity is distributed above a depth of ∼150 km (Fig. 5). Thus,
the Indian continental lithosphere beneath Myanmar may also be
a result of rebound or uplift after slab detachment (Wortel and
Spakman, 2000). However, more seismic evidence of slab break-off
and tearing beneath Myanmar is needed at mantle depths.
5.3. Partial eclogitization of the subducted Indian lower crust
The intermediate-depth events shown in Fig. 7 are relocated si-
multaneously with the inversion of the velocity structure (Zhang
and Thurber, 2003). The mean location errors in the latitude, longi-
tude and depth of these earthquakes are 3.16 km, 3.98 km and 4.31
km, respectively (Fig. 5). Most of the intermediate-depth events are
distributed along the lowermost part of LV1 at depths of 40–80
km. However, the seismicity extends beyond the down deep end
8
Earth and Planetary Science Letters 567 (2021) 116987
of LV1 from 80 to 120 km (inside the blue dotted rectangles in
Figs. 7g–i), where the V P (∼8.2 km/s) and V s (∼4.6 km/s) are
higher than those of LV1 (V P of 7.2∼7.8 km/s; V s of 4.0–4.5
km/s) but similar to those of the surrounding lithospheric mantle.
The average V P / V S ratios, which are more sensitive to the ex-
istence of fluids, have also been noted to be rather low (∼1.68)
within this depth range along the seismicity (Figs. 7g–i). Com-
pared to the results of seismological investigations on the sub-
ducted lower crust beneath southern Tibet and Pamir, such V P and
V S values in the lower crust are typical indicators of the partial
eclogitization of subducted continental lower crust (e.g., Schulte-
Pelkum et al., 2005; Wittlinger et al., 2009; Sippl et al., 2013).
The localized eclogitization of the lower crust can be catalyzed by
dehydration-produced water and considerably reduces the strength
of rocks so that they are brittle in character (Kita et al., 2010;
Shi et al., 2020). This reaction-induced embrittlement may trigger
intermediate-depth events in the lower continental crust (Incel et
al., 2019), which provides a possible scenario for interpreting the
observed deep seismicity in our results.
In the metamorphic eclogitization process, the density of the
mafic continental lower crust can be increased to a value simi-
lar to that of the lithospheric mantle (Hetényi et al., 2007), thus
reversing buoyancy and facilitating deep burial (Krystopowicz and
Currie, 2013). However, water in the continental crust is scarcer
than that in the oceanic crust, so eclogitization may be slower
or incomplete (Leech, 2001; Schneider et al., 2013). Such partial
eclogitization may explain why the lower crust in our results can
penetrate to at least 100 km beneath Myanmar without delamina-
tion, whereas the subducted oceanic crust weakened by complete
eclogitization is usually decoupled from the lithospheric mantle at
shallow depths (Doin and Henry, 2001).
5.4. Holocene volcanism of the Monywa volcano (MWV)
The MWV is located in the central part of the north-south
trending WMPA, which separates the CMB into forearc basin and
back-arc basin (Wang et al., 2014; Cai et al., 2019). Previous geo-
chemical analysis indicates that the latest eruption of the MWV
occurred in the Holocene (Belousov et al., 2018), but the deep ori-
gin of this volcanism remains unclear due to the lack of seismic
observations. In the crust, a relatively high velocity anomaly (V P of
6.5 km/s; V s of 3.5 km/s) is observed beneath the MWV (Figs. 7c
and 7f). Directly beneath it, a low velocity anomaly with V P of
7.2 km/s and low V s of 4.2 km/s (LV2) is imaged, representing the
partially melting materials (Nakajima et al., 2001). Resolution tests
have validated the shape and amplitude of these two anomalies
(Fig. 9g). Here, we interpret these two anomalies as direct struc-
tural evidence of the continental subduction-related volcanism of
the MWV.
The volcanic rocks from the latest volcanism of the MWV
are featured as calc-alkaline and shoshonitic affinities exhibiting
subduction-related signatures (Lee et al., 2016; Zhang et al., 2020).
Based on the imaging results shown in Fig. 7c, we speculate that
the Indian continental lithosphere extends eastward just below
the MWV, where the LV2 anomaly delineates a mantle upwelling
process. This indicates that fluid was released from the cold conti-
nental lithosphere and migrated into the overlying mantle wedge
at depths from 80 to 120 km, resulting in the partial melting of
the mantle wedge and the formation of calc-alkaline arc magma
(Lee et al., 2016). At depths ranging from 30 to 40 km, the LV2
anomaly acts as a hanging pocket with a lower V P of 7.2 km/s and
a lower V s of 4.0 km/s (Figs. 7c and 7f), indicating the possible
existence of a magma chamber filled with upwelling melting ma-
terials (Koulakov et al., 2009). Then the magma chamber may feed
the surface volcanism and hydrothermal activities of the MWV, and
G. Zhang, Y. He, Y. Ai et al. Earth and Planetary Science Letters 567 (2021) 116987

Fig. 9. Synthetic tests performed to evaluate the resolution capability of the local earthquake tomography with respect to the three velocity anomalies in the mantle. (a) Real
absolute velocity along profile CC’ in Fig. 7c. Contours are given in 0.5 km/s intervals. The white dashed lines depict the resolution limit. The dashed black lines indicate
the Moho depths obtained from CRUST 1.0 (Laske et al., 2013). (b) Real relative velocity compared to the initial velocity model along profile CC’. (c–g) Five end member
tests performed to validate the penetrating depth (80/120 km), the thickness of LV1 (30/10 km), the break-off point of the slab and the existence of LV2. The left column
shows the “SYN INPUT” which is the synthetic input model constrained by mimicking the results from (a) and (b). The right column shows the “SYN OUTPUT”, which is the
inversion result of the synthetic input. The gray dots indicate the earthquakes located between latitudes 21.875◦ N and 22.125◦ N. IBR: Indo-Burma Ranges; KBF: Kabaw Fault;
SGF: Sagaing Fault; MWV: Monywa volcano.

9
G. Zhang, Y. He, Y. Ai et al.
Fig. 10. An illustration of our interpretation of the crustal and lithospheric mantle structure beneath Myanmar. Contours represent 0.5 km/s intervals. The white dashed lines
depict the resolution limit. The dashed black lines indicate the Moho depths obtained from CRUST 1.0 (Laske et al., 2013). The gray dots denote the relocated shallow and
intermediate-depth earthquakes. IBR: Indo-Burma Ranges; KBF: Kabaw Fault; WMPA: Wuntho-Monywa-Popa arc; MWV: Monywa volcano.
a low V P / V S ratio in the crust may indicate the presence of water
(Takei, 2002).
6. Conclusions
In this study, we have developed high-resolution V P , V S , and
V P / V S models of the crust and lithospheric mantle beneath cen-
tral Myanmar, which provide new constraints on the existence of
Indian continental lithosphere beneath Myanmar and the origin of
the Monywa volcano. The Indian continental lithosphere beneath
the IBR and CMB is well imaged in our tomographic model. These
results reveal the geometries and characteristics of the continental
regime extending to a depth of at least 100 km with a dip angle of
∼25◦ (Fig. 10). This continental lithosphere beneath Myanmar may
have been pulled down by the attachment of the earlier subducted
Indian oceanic lithosphere.
At the down deep end of the Indian continental slab, the dis-
tribution of intermediate-depth seismicity, with a high V P of 8.2
km/s, a high V s of 4.6 km/s and a rather low average V P / V S ratio
of ∼1.68, indicates that the subducted Indian lowermost crust may
have experienced partial eclogitization, which provides a possible
scenario to interpret the deep seismicity in our results.
Our velocity models also provide direct seismic structure evi-
dence of the origin of the volcanism of the MWV. The low V P and
V s anomalies in the lithospheric mantle, indicate the continental
lithosphere dehydration and partial melting in the mantle wedge.
At depths of 30–40 km, the imaged low velocity zone indicates
the possible existence of a magma chamber, which may be filled
by upwelling materials from continental subduction and feed the
surface volcanism and hydrothermal activities of the MWV.
Declaration of competing interest
The authors declare that they have no known competing finan-
cial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to
influence the work reported in this paper.
Acknowledgements
We thank Editor Hans Thybo and two anonymous reviewers
for their constructive suggestions and comments that helped us
significantly improve the paper. We gratefully acknowledge the re-
searchers and colleagues at the Seismic Array Laboratory, Institute
of Geology and Geophysics, Chinese Academy of Sciences (http://
10
Earth and Planetary Science Letters 567 (2021) 116987
doi.org/10.12129/IGGSL.Data.Observation), for their efforts to in-
stall and maintain the CMGSMO seismic network. We thank Xin
Wang for the linguistic assistance during the preparation of the
manuscript. Plots were generated using Generic Mapping Tools
(GMT). This work was supported by the National Natural Science
Foundation of China (grants 91755214, 42030309, 41490612), the
Strategic Priority Research Program (B) of the Chinese Academy
of Sciences (XDB18000000) and the International Partnership Pro-
gram of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (GJHZ1776).
Appendix A. Supplementary material
Supplementary material related to this article can be found on-
line at https://doi.org/10.1016/j.epsl.2021.116987.
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