Fig. 3: Geographic distribution and estimated melt volume fraction of low-velocity zone (LVZ) in the crust.
From: Three stages of plateau evolution manifested in present-day Tibetan Plateau
a Geographic distribution of LVZs with a sharp top discontinuity (“LVZ-sharp”, magenta sector), LVZs without a sharp top discontinuity (“LVZ-smooth”, cyan sector), and no LVZs (“LVZ-free”, grey sector). Regions of “LVZ-sharp” and “LVZ-smooth” are marked with a black-shaded area and an orange-shaded area, respectively. Blue arrows point to the example sites of shear-wave velocity (VS) inversion shown in Fig. 2. b Estimated volume fraction of melt for all “LVZ-sharp” sites, with four regions of relatively high values of melt (> 4 vol%) marked with cyan-shaded areas (R1–R4). Major geological faults49,67 are marked with black lines. (c) Interpretation of three types of crustal profiles, with “LVZ-smooth” representing young melt and “LVZ-sharp” representing mature melt that forms a sharp discontinuity in the top after some time of accumulation of melt and enriched composition of decreased solidus.
