Subduction - Importance

Importance

Subduction zones are important for several reasons:

  1. Subduction Zone Physics: Sinking of the oceanic lithosphere (sediments + crust + mantle), by contrast of density between the cold and old lithosphere and the hot asthenospheric mantle wedge, is the strongest force (but not the only one) needed to drive plate motion and is the dominant mode of mantle convection.
  2. Subduction Zone Chemistry: The subducted sediments and crust dehydrate and release water-rich (aqueous) fluids into the overlying mantle, causing mantle melting and fractionation of elements between surface and deep mantle reservoirs, producing island arcs and continental crust.
  3. Subduction zones drag down subducted oceanic sediments, oceanic crust, and mantle lithosphere that interact with the hot asthenospheric mantle from the overriding plate to produce calc-alkaline series melts, ore deposits, and continental crust.

Subduction zones have also been considered as possible disposal sites for nuclear waste, in which the action of subduction itself would carry the material into the planetary mantle, safely away from any possible influence on humanity or the surface environment. However, this method of disposal is currently banned by international agreement. Furthermore, plate subduction zones are associated with very large megathrust earthquakes, making the effects on using any specific site for disposal unpredictable and possibly adverse to the safety of long-term disposal.

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