On the role of slab pull in the Cenozoic motion of the Pacific plate

We analyze the role of slab pull acting on the Pacific plate during its early Tertiary change in motion. Slab pull forces are estimated by integrating the negative buoyancy of a 700 km long slab along a revised subduction boundary model adopting the Muller et al. (2008) seafloor age reconstructions. Our results indicate that torques predicted from a simple slab pull model match the Pacific plate Euler vectors during the Tertiary fairly well. The change of the Pacific motion at similar to 50-40 Ma appears to be driven by the onset of the Izu-Bonin-Mariana system and, soon afterwards, by the Tonga-Kermadec subduction zones. Citation: Faccenna, C., T. W. Becker, S. Lallemand, and B. Steinberger (2012), On the role of slab pull in the Cenozoic motion of the Pacific plate, Geophys. Res. Lett., 39, L03305, doi: 10.1029/2011GL050155.