Modelling rates and distribution of subsidence due to dynamic topography over subducting slabs: is it possible to identify dynamic topography from ancient strata?

Dynamic topography formed over subducting oceanic lithosphere has been proposed as a mechanism to explain certain otherwise anomalous long‐wavelength patterns of subsidence inferred from ancient strata. Forward modelling of mantle flow in response to a subducting slab predicts amplitudes and distributions of dynamic topography that may occur due to various subducting slab geometries and histories. Plotting calculated dynamic topographies at a point against time produces tectonic subsidence curves. These subsidence curves show features such as evolution from convex to concave shape, amplitudes up to ~2000 m, subsidence rates up to ~220 m Myr⁻¹, and a general decrease in subsidence amplitude away from the subduction zone, over a distance of ~2000 km. On many convergent continental margins, dynamic topography is likely to be superimposed on other subsidence mechanisms. In back‐arc basins, subsidence due to dynamic topography should be distinguishable from that due to extensional tectonics based simply on the temporal subsidence evolution expressed in the subsidence curve shapes. In a foreland basin setting, comparing dynamic topography models with forward models of flexural loading suggest the two processes can generate similar temporal subsidence patterns, but that dynamic topography causes subsidence over significantly greater wavelengths. Matches between calculated subsidence due to dynamic topography and backstripped subsidence patterns from Upper Cretaceous strata of the Western Interior Basin, USA, support the hypothesis that a long‐wavelength ‘background subsidence’ was caused by dynamic topography.