Upper Mantle beneath the Myanmar and Surrounding Tomography: New Insight into Plate Subduction and Volcanism
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
1. Abstract does not highlight novelty, please revise it.
2. Introduction is not focused and the literature can be reorganized; to strengthen the literature review, the following contributions must be discussed and cited
https://doi.org/10.3390/rs13132449
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.soildyn.2022.107451
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pepi.2018.12.001
3. For ease of reader add a flowchart describing the methodology of this study
4. Organise your results some are difficult to understand e.g. what do you want to conclude in Figure 3. Highlight the seismic sources as well.
5. Some conclusions are redundant remove them.
Author Response
Dear Reviewers:
We are very grateful to Reviewer for reviewing the paper so carefully. We have tried our best to improve the manuscript.
1.Abstract has revised:
Myanmar and its surrounding areas have complex topography and strong tectonic movement, which has always been the challenge to most geoscientists. We used teleseismic tomography to study the subsurface velocity structure in this area. We present a new P-wave tomographic model beneath Beneath the Myanmar and Surrounding by inverting 129788 arrival-time data recorded by 372 stations. We found an inclined high-velocity subducting plate beneath central Myanmar where the dip angle becomes smaller appears near 25° ~ 26°N, and the seismic depth is limited below 200 km. the Indian oceanic lithosphere is being detached from theIndian continental lithosphere, which limits the depth of the earthquake. The active Tengchong volcano is underlain by a prominent low-velocity (low-V) anomaly in the shallow mantle, which may be caused by the subduction and dehydration of the Burma microplate plate (or Indian plate). The formation of Singu volcano is related to the mantle flow of the Qinghai-Tibet plateau and the tearing of the Indian plate. The Yangtze craton (beneath Sichuan Basic) shows a high velocity anomaly, and both the shallow and deep parts have been destroyed, which may be related to the upwelling of deep heat flow.
2. The literature has be reorganized and the three contributions have be discussed and cited。
3. Considering the Reviewer’s suggestion, we have added a flowchart describing the methodology of this study
4.Figure 3 shows the relative arrival-time residual
patterns for each of the events. The coherent pattern of residuals in each case, which is suggestive of significant lateral variations in mantle structure beneath the array.
5. Some conclusions have been removed.
Reviewer 2 Report
Well done tomography but their writing and interpretations are sometimes off. Sometimes it’s not clear where or what they are writing about. It needs to go back for revision.
Title: Surrounding what?
Abstract line 11: “The subduction angle of the india plate increases at 23 °N ~ 24 11 °N, and the seismic depth is limited below 200 km”. Does this mean that the plate is shallower or deeper in the north? And India should be capitalized.
Line 12: “ The transition zone between the oceanic plate and the continental plate may be torn”. This is the abstract and transition zone hasn’t been defined yet.
Line 17: Get rid of “At the same time,”.
Line 21: “We” shouldn’t be capitalized.
Line 41: I’m not sure where the India-Myanmar mountains are. Do you mean the Burmise mountains?
Line 47: I would say that what is being called the Myanmar microplate is the subducting Indian slab beneath Burma. The Myanmar microplate lies above this slab.
Line 51: What are the two subduction rate models?
Line 57: “Yao et al. proposed four possible models for the subduction system of the Indian 57 plate under central Myanmar [13].” So, what are the four models?
Line 63: “The low velocity anomaly is confined to about 150 km, … [8].” The results of this paper will contradict that later. Be sure to point this out later.
Figure 1: Put in alphabetical order. I can’t read the volcano names nor the abbreviations in red.
Line 96: “the picking times of each event for ISC data should not be less 96 than 15 times,”. Try “each event was required to have a minimum of 15 arrivals.”
Line 98: Unclear. Try “All events had epicenters within 30 to 90 degrees of 25N, 95E”
In line 128: “we determine the study area and assume that all travel time residuals are caused by local anomalies.” And in line 156 “our example, all earthquakes, receivers, and ray paths are located within the defined model volume.”. These are contradictory statements!
Line 155: “the continuous surface with geometric shape change”. What is that?
Line 171: “Myanmar, Tengchong and Yangtze cratons have been restored well”. As the authors know, Myanmar and Tengchong are not cratons. The way this is written implies that they are.
Line 186: “solution model that meets an acceptable level of data”. I don’t know what this means.
Line 187: What is the “data difference”? is this the variance? The sum of squares? If so, why aren’t the rms’es the square root of them? Use clear terminology.
Line 194: “With the increase of the subduction depth, the position of the subduction moves westward”. Shouldn’t that be eastward? How about just saying “the subduction dips to the east”
Line 195 “the velocity decreases obviously when the subduction depth reaches 600 km.” What is the reference earth model here? This should be phrased “the velocity changes decrease at a depth of 600 km”.
Line 199: What is “anomaly of the fracture”? What fracture? These lines are very unclear.
Line 201: “have been found”. Have been found by whom? Don’t use past perfect tense here if this is referring to this paper’s work.
Line 204: “There is an obvious medium-low velocity anomaly beneath the Yangtze craton,”. I see a high speed anomaly beneath Sichuan basin. Is this different?
Line 206: What is meant by “range”?
Line 213: Where is the “Thai volcanic cluster”?
Line 218: “speed disturbance”. Just say “velocity scale”.
Line 233: Where are the North India Mountains?
Line 230: “When the depth is greater than 100 km, dip angle of the subduction plate increases from ∨55° in the north to ∨70° in the south.” Should this be east and west? Or is the dip changing from north to south?
Line 233: “The position where the dip angle becomes larger appears near 23° ~ 24°N”. This is not what I see in Figure 7. There I see a constant dip from 22 to 25N, with a shallower dip angle on the 26N cross section.
Line 247: “The Indian subduction plate under the Indo-Burmese Mountains seems to have been separated from other lithospheres at approximately 25°N. 248 This is the first study to observe this phenomenon in tomographic images [11].” I have no idea what this is about.
Line 251: “Becomes larger”. From north to south or from south to north? And, again, I don’t see a change in angle at 24-25N.
Line 265: Capitalize “the”.
Line 266: What is meant by “boards”? Does this refer to the slabs??
Figure 8 and line 248: Aren’t the volcanoes in the central valley just arc volcanoes caused by dewatering of the slab? In that case there is no need for the flow to come from beneath the slab.
Line 288: “descending part of the board is separated from the curved part and sinks”. What is a board and what is this sentence about?
Line 321. I don’t see this “low velocity passage” to the underside of Singu volcano. Which figure? I don’t see how this can be resolved.
Line 347 “Whether mantle flow can cause such damage is controversial. Therefore, they need to be further confirmed by geophysics and numerical simulation. Therefore, the heat flow accompanied by mantle upwelling led to thermal erosion at the bottom of the Yangtze craton [24][63].” It seems to me these lines are contradictory. It is first said that mantle flow causing erosion is controversial, then cites two references that say it’s not.
Line 366: Again, I disagree with this latitude as a change. And the sentence doesn’t say which direction the change occurs in.
Author Response
Dear Reviewers:
We are very grateful to Reviewer for reviewing the paper so carefully. We have tried our best to improve the manuscript.
Considering the Reviewer’s suggestion, all the problems have been corrected.
Please see the attachment.
Thank you！
Author Response File: 
Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 3 Report
Review for Meng et al. “Insights from PWave Travel Time Tomography in the Upper Mantle Beneath the Myanmar and Surrounding”, submitted to Remote Sensing.
This is an interesting manuscript on mantle tomography in South East Asia. The manuscript is suitable for a wide audience. However, I have a few points that should be considered prior to publication. The major points are listed below, all minor points are annotated in the attached manuscript.
Major points:
1. The title is not very specific and should reflect the results of the study.
2. Several times, I could not understand the meaning of a sentence or an expression that was used in the text. These issues are listed below and should be clarified and/or rephrased.
Line 64: What is “subarc subduction”?
Line 69: What is “surface heat flow velocity”?
Line 71-72: I do not understand the meaning.
Line 104: I do not understand the meaning.
Line 211-212: I do not understand the meaning.
Line 250: I do not understand what you mean.
Line 303: Please explain “weak spherical mantle”.
Line 324: What you mean with “slip faults”?
3. Please indicate the kinematics of the faults in Fig. 1. The labels on the map are difficult to read.
4. You should cite Bürgmann & Dresen (2008) in line 342, when you discuss the lithosphere models.
5. If I understand your model correctly, the Singu volcano developed above a gap in the slab. This has to be better explained in the text. The way you have drawn it, it looks like a slab window. Slab windows often occur when mid-ocean ridges are subducted. The key in case of slab windows is that they shut down the activity of the volcanic arc. If this a slab window, please use the related literature and discuss the volcanic activity in relation of slab window formation.
Comments for author File: Comments.pdf
Author Response
Dear Reviewers:
We are very grateful to Reviewer for reviewing the paper so carefully. We have tried our best to improve the manuscript.
Considering the Reviewer’s suggestion, all the problems have been corrected.
All minor points are revised in the attached manuscript. Please see the attachment. Please see the attachment.
Responds to the reviewers' comments:
1.The title has been revised to 《Upper Mantle Beneath the Myanmar and Surrounding tomography: New insight into plate subduction and volcanism
》
2. As Reviewer suggested that these issues are listed have be clarified and rephrased. Please see the attachment
3.Fig. 1 has been revised that is easy to read.
4.I have cited Bürgmann & Dresen (2008) in line 342.
5.I have use the related literature and discuss the volcanic activity in relation of slab window formation. Please see the attachment
Thank you
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Round 2
Reviewer 1 Report
The authors have addressed all the comments.
Author Response
Dear Reviewers:
We are very grateful to Reviewer for reviewing the paper so carefully. We have tried our best to improve the manuscript.
Considering the Reviewer’s suggestion, we have made some changes in English.. Please see the attachment.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
Unfortunately, the revision of this paper introduced many grammar errors that must be fixed. I caught a quite a few other issues with the text too.
Line 14: “the” needs capitalizing. Separate “theIndian”
Line 19: “Basin”, not basic.
Line 34: “including two 34 subbasin side troughs located in the east and west of the Western Pacific Basin [2].” I’m not sure where this is referring to.
Line 43: It is the Indian plate that subducts beneath Burma, not the Burmese microplate. I would define that as the region between the trough and the Sagaing fault.
Line 49: Two shouldn’t be capitalized. What is “rate of subduction”? “in” should be “for”.
Line 50: I don’t understand the difference between active dive and stop or slow dive. Exactly what is the “long standing problem”.
Line 67: Try: The Yangtze craton may have destructed due to the lateral extrusion of the upper mantle material under SE Tibet and mantle upwelling at the base of the craton.
Line 94: try: IRIS data should have a minimum of 5 arrivals
Paragraph at 125: several dashes are in this paragraph that need removing.
Line 127: “29]. The problem of 127 seismic waves propagating through layered soil de-posits is solved using one-dimen-128 sional ground response analysis[30].” What is this doing in the paper? How is this relevant?
Line 139. No semicolon.
Line 140 The shouldn’t be capitalized.
Line 160: Describe not describ.
Line 166: Does this mean the inversion grid is 0.7x0.7 degrees x 85km? It must as the checkerboard grid seems to have square sizes over 2 degrees. It needs to be made clear what the inversion grid size is and the checkerboard square size is in this paragraph.
Line 186: Now it says 70x70x85 km. This is not the same as 0.7x0.7 degrees x 85 km. Close, but not the same.
Line 198: Just say. The subduction dips to the east and seems to have a maximum depth of up to 600 km.
Line 203: “find” should be “are found”.
Line 210: What does appearing and disappearing at the same time mean?
Line 241: I think “slowing” should be “steepening”.
Line 250: “The subduction part of the Indian lithosphere below the Indo-Burma 250 Mountains clearly observed in the sectional image seems to have detached from other 251 parts at approximately 25°N [11].” I don’t see this in the image. Or is this sentence referring only to the reference?
Line 266: : ”we” should be “We”. Why is it assumed that the continental crust subducts to a depth of 150-200 km? I see no evidence for this whatsoever in the paper or the references.
Line 281: Several shouldn’t be capitalized.
Line 317: Lateral is misspelled.
Line 321: most should be capitalized.
Line 326 “Our results show that there may be a low velocity corridor from the 326 mantle transition zone to the underside of the Singu volcano (figure 8e, red arrow). It isn’t obvious that the low velocity corridor penetrates the slab. There isn’t really enough resolution to say, but it’s one of the main conclusions of the paper.
Line 370: No semicolon.
Line 373: Don’t the the “the” that was added.
Author Response
Dear Reviewers:
We are very grateful to Reviewer for reviewing the paper so carefully. We have tried our best to improve the manuscript.
Considering the Reviewer’s suggestion, all the problems have been corrected.
All minor points are revised in the attached manuscript. Please see the attachment. Please see the attachment.
Responds to the reviewers' comments:
Does this mean the inversion grid is 0.7x0.7 degrees x 85km? It must as the checkerboard grid seems to have square sizes over 2 degrees. It needs to be made clear what the inversion grid size is and the checkerboard square size is in this paragraph.
Answer: I have revised it in this paper. A checkerboard consists of four inversion grids.
“The subduction part of the Indian lithosphere below the Indo-Burma Mountains clearly observed in the sectional image seems to have detached from other parts at approximately 25°N [11].” I don’t see this in the image. Or is this sentence referring only to the reference?
Answer：This is sentence referring only to the reference.
Why is it assumed that the continental crust subducts to a depth of 150-200 km? I see no evidence for this whatsoever in the paper or the references.
Answer：As Reviewer suggested that these issues are listed have be clarified and rephrased. Please see the attachment
“Our results show that there may be a low velocity corridor from the mantle transition zone to the underside of the Singu volcano (figure 8e, red arrow). It isn’t obvious that the low velocity corridor penetrates the slab. There isn’t really enough resolution to say, but it’s one of the main conclusions of the paper
Answer：As Reviewer suggested that these issues are listed have be clarified and rephrased. I find that several researchers had similar results，I think this can be used as evidence.
Thank you
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
