No. 41 · Nature Communications · 2 July 2026

Continuous nonthermal slab gap formed by progressive tearing beneath Northeast Asia

Jung-Hun Song, Seongryong Kim, Benoît Tauzin, Junkee Rhie

DOI 10.1038/s41467-026-75246-8 Publisher page Cite PI corresponding author Geodynamics and Earth structure

Representative figure

Maps of mantle-transition-zone thickness and inferred temperature anomalies beneath Northeast Asia, with violin plots comparing mantle potential temperatures. — The roughly 1,000-km arcuate gap has sharp lateral boundaries, temperatures more than 200 °C below plume-like conditions, and a planform aligned with the path of a migrating triple junction.

Figure 5 · Song et al. (2026), Nature Communications, Figure 5. · CC BY-NC-ND 4.0

Citation

Jung-Hun Song, Seongryong Kim, Benoît Tauzin, and Junkee Rhie (2026), Continuous nonthermal slab gap formed by progressive tearing beneath Northeast Asia, Nature Communications, 17(1), 8249, doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-026-75246-8. [Open access]