Receiver functions in northeast China – implications for slab penetration into the lower mantle in northwest Pacific subduction zone

Seismic studies of the subducting lithosphere and the upper mantle discontinuities in the northwest Pacific subduction zone beneath Japan and northeast China have suggested contrary subduction scenarios. There was little consensus on the issue whether the subducting slab penetrates the upper mantle discontinuities into the lower mantle or it is deflected atop of the 660-km discontinuity over several hundred kilometers. We calculate receiver functions from a recent seismic broadband station network located in northeast China and find topographic variations of the upper mantle discontinuities. A deeper-than-normal 660-km discontinuity is observed over an area of 400 km and it coincides with the stagnant slab imaged by seismic tomography. The 660-km discontinuity is locally depressed by more than 35 km and the transition zone is thickened by more than 20 km in the east of the region where it encounters the slab. These observations provide evidence of the slab accumulating in the mantle transition zone and locally penetrating into the lower mantle.