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Abstract

The Sumatra subduction zone is located on the eastern side of the Sunda Arc between the Sunda Strait and the Andaman Islands, where the Indo-Australian plate is subducting beneath the Eurasian plate. An important tool in understanding the style and geometry of deformation within a subduction zone is the measurement of seismic anisotropy, through observations of shear wave splitting, which provides information about the mantle flow. In Sumatra two temporary seismic networks were deployed within the Mentawai and Northern region, between December 2007 and October 2008 and April 2008 and February 2009, respectively. Here we use new splitting measurements from SKS and local S phases from these networks, to characterize the type and amount of anisotropy within the region. High quality SKS splitting results obtained from 16 stations show a coherent fast direction of NNW (350°) to SSE (170°) with delay times of 1.0 to 3.0s. The observations do not conform to the standard classification of trench parallel and trench perpendicular, instead they are trench oblique, approximately parallel to the direction of motion of the subducting Indo-Australian plate. The magnitude and direction of splitting suggests that the anisotropy is due too entrained flow in the asthenosphere beneath the subducting lithosphere. Local S wave splitting measurements were obtained from 85 rays, generated by earthquakes at focal depths of 15 km-200 km and recorded across 39 stations. The polarization of the fast shear wave is trench parallel along the islands and can be contributed to shape preferred orientation of cracks in the top of the subducting slab and overriding crust. In the forearc a rotation in fast direction to trench perpendicular is observed, with a clear positive correlation between the distance the ray has traveled in the mantle and delay time, suggesting anisotropy originates from entrained flow within the mantle wedge. In the Sumatra fault region and the back arc, events originating at the plate interface show both trench perpendicular and trench parallel fast directions with delay times of up to 0.4 s, while shallow events on the Sumatra fault indicate a clear fault parallel direction with delay times of 0.1 s to 0.18 s. This pattern of shear wave splitting suggests layers of different anisotropy, one deeper layer due to entrained flow within the Sumatran mantle wedge causing trench perpendicular direction, and the second shallower one within the overriding crust due to shape preferred orientation possibly caused by the Sumatran Fault.