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1.
A trial experiment proves the power and practicality of using both sources and receivers near the ocean floor to make precise measurements of deep (∼6000 m) ocean sediment velocity structure. A digitally recording ocean bottom hydrophone receiver operating at a sampling rate of 1800 Hz recorded clear arrivals with bubble pulse frequencies of ∼500 Hz from 41b. explosive charges detonated at depths of 5500m along a 4 km long wide angle reflection profile. It is shown that corrections for changes in source depth may be computed without approximation and without prior knowledge of the velocity structure. The experiment was located at longitude 56° W in the trough of the Kane Fracture Zone. The velocity structure of the 1 km thick sedimentary section reveals a 310 m thickness of 3 km s−1 material overlying igneous basement.  相似文献   

2.
Five seismic refraction lines, 70–90 km long, were shot in the South Florida Platform region of the Gulf of Mexico using digital ocean-bottom seismographs. Apparent velocities and depths were calculated from the refracted arrivals using a flat-layer model for the region. The two dominant refractors have apparent compressional-wave velocity ranges of 5.6 to 5.9 km s–1 and 6.2 to 6.7 km s–1. On the Sarasota Arch, the depth to the top of a 5.8–5.9km/s layer is 3–4 km below sea level. This depth corresponds to the depth to the crystalline basement. The basement dips to the north and to the south from the arch, with velocity of the upper crust increasing from 5.8–5.9 km s–1 to a maximum of 6.7 km s–1 at a depth of 6.3 km. Under the continental slope, the crust has presumably been thinned and extended. The deepest refractor has an apparent velocity of about 7.5 km s–1 at a depth of 25 km. The thickness of the crustal section and the absence of any mantle arrivals in these long refraction profiles on the platform suggest that thick continental crust underlies the South Florida Platform. A north-south cross-section through the platform suggests the presence of two structural highs separated by a portion of the South Florida Basin, which contains at least 5 km of sediment.  相似文献   

3.
The Atlantis Fracture Zone (30° N) is one of the smallest transform faults along the Mid-Atlantic Ridge with a spatial offset of 70 km and an age offset of ~ 6 Ma. The morphology of the Atlantis Fracture Zone is typical of that of slow-slipping transforms. The transform valley is 15–20 km wide and 2–4 km deep. The locus of strike-slip deformation is confined to a narrow band a few kilometers wide. Terrain created at the outside corners of the transform is characterized by ridges which curve toward the ridge-transform intersections and depressions which resemble nodal basins. Hooked ridges are not observed on the transform side of the ridge-transform intersections. Results of the three-dimensional inversion of the surface magnetic field over our survey area suggest that accretionary processes are sufficiently organized within 3–4 km of the transform fault to produce lineated magnetic anomalies. The magnetization solution further documents a 15-km, westward relocation of the axis of accretion immediately south of the transform about 0.25 Ma ago. The Atlantis Transform is associated with a band of high mantle Bouguer anomalies, suggesting the presence of high densities in the crust and/or mantle along the transform, or anomalously thin crust beneath the transform. Assuming that all the mantle Bouguer anomalies are due to crustal thickness variations, we calculate that the crust may be 2–3 km thinner than a reference 6-km thickness beneath the transform valley, and 2–3 km thicker beneath the mid-points of the spreading segments which bound the transform. Our results indicate that crustal thinning is not uniform along the strike of the fracture zone. Based on studies of the state of compensation of the transform, we conclude that the depth anomaly associated with the fracture zone valley is not compensated everywhere by thin crust. Instead, the regional relationship between bathymetry and gravity is best explained by compensation with an elastic plate with an effective thickness of ~ 4 km or greater. However, the remaining isostatic anomalies indicate that there are large variations away from this simple model which are likely due to variations in crustal thickness and density near the transform.  相似文献   

4.
Satellite-borne altimeters have had a profound impact on geodesy, geophysics, and physical oceanography. To first order approximation, profiles of sea surface height are equivalent to the geoid and are highly correlated with seafloor topography for wavelengths less than 1000 km. Using all available Geos-3 and Seasat altimeter data, mean sea surfaces and geoid gradient maps have been computed for the Bering Sea and the South Pacific. When enhanced using hill-shading techniques, these images reveal in graphic detail the surface expression of seamounts, ridges, trenches, and fracture zones. Such maps are invaluable in oceanic regions where bathymetric data are sparse. Superimposed on the static geoid topography is dynamic topography due to ocean circulation. Temporal variability of dynamic height due to oceanic eddies can be determined from time series of repeated altimeter profiles. Maps of sea height variability and eddy kinetic energy derived from Geos-3 and Seasat altimetry in some cases represent improvements over those derived from standard oceanographic observations. Measurement of absolute dynamic height imposes stringent requirements on geoid and orbit accuracies, although existing models and data have been used to derive surprisingly realistic global circulation solutions. Further improvement will only be made when advances are made in geoid modeling and precision orbit determination. In contrast, it appears that use of altimeter data to correct satellite orbits will enable observation of basin-scale sea level variations of the type associated with climatic phenomena.  相似文献   

5.
A seismic reflection profiling system consisting of a 264 m long, deep-towed, 15-element, end-fire, vertical array and a 40 cubic inch airgun was successfully used to profile a sediment pond in the trough of the inactive segment of the Kane Fracture Zone close to it's intersection with the Mid-Atlantic Ridge at 24° N. The increased signal to noise ratio achieved with the array demonstrates that it is a useful tool for detailed seismic profiling in areas of rough topography in the deep ocean.Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution Contribution No. 5443.  相似文献   

6.
The Kane Fracture Zone probably is better covered by geophysical survey data, acquired both by design and incidentally, than any other fracture zone in the North Atlantic Ocean. We have used this data to map the basement morphology of the fracture zone and the adjacent crust for nearly 5700 km, from near Cape Hatteras to the middle of the Mesozoic magnetic anomalies west of Cap Blanc, northwest Africa. We use the trends of the Kane transform valley and its inactive fracture valley to determine the record of plate-motion changes, and we interpret the basement structural data to examine how the Kane transform evolved in response to changes in plate motion. Prior to about 133 Ma the Kane was a small-offset transform and its fracture valley is structurally expressed only as a shallow ( < 0.5 km) trough. In younger crust, the offset may have increased to as much as 190 km (present offset 150 km) and the fracture valley typically is up to 1.2 km deep. This part of the fracture valley records significant changes in direction of relative plate motion (5°–30°) near 102 Ma, 92 Ma, 59 Ma, 22 Ma, and 17 Ma. Each change corresponds to a major reorganization of plate boundaries in areas around the Atlantic, and the fracture-zone orientation appears to be a sensitive recorder of these events. The Kane transform has exhibited characteristic responses to changes in relative plate motion. Counterclockwise plate-motion changes put the left-lateral transform offset into extension, and the response was for ridge tips at the ridge-transform intersections to propagate across the transform valley and against the truncating lithosphere. Heating of this lithosphere appears to have produced uplift and formation of a well developed transverse ridge that bounds the inactive fracture valley on its older side. The propagating ridge tips also rotated toward the transform fault in response to the local stress field, forming prominent hooked ridges that now extend into or across the inactive fracture valley. Clockwise (compressional) changes in relative plate motion produced none of these features, and the resulting fracture valleys typically have a wide-V shape. The Kane transform experienced severe adaptions to the changes in relative plate motion at about 102 Ma (compressional shift) and 92 Ma (extensional shift), and new transform faults were formed in crust outside the contemporary transform valley. Subsequently, the transform offset has been smaller and the rates of change in plate motion have been more gradual, so transform-fault adjustment has been contained within the transform valley. The fracture-valley structure formed during extensional and compressional changes in relative plate motion can be decidedly asymmetrical in conjugate limbs of the fracture zone. This asymmetry appears to be related to the ‘absolute’ motion of the plate boundary with respect to the asthenosphere.  相似文献   

7.
The 1994 Tasmante swath-mapping and reflection seismic cruise covered 200 000 km2 of sea floor south and west of Tasmania. The survey provided a wealth of morphological, structural and sedimentological information, in an area of critical importance in reconstructing the break-up of East Gondwana.The west Tasmanian margin consists of a non-depositional continental shelf less than 50 km wide and a sedimented continental slope about 100 km wide. The adjacent 20 km of abyssal plain to the west is heavily sedimented, and beyond that is lightly sedimented Eocene oceanic crust formed as Australia and Antarctica separated. The swath data revealed systems of 100 m-deep downslope canyons and large lower-slope fault-blocks, striking 320° and dipping landward. These continental blocks lie adjacent to the continent ocean boundary (COB) and are up to 2500 m high and have 15°–20° scarps.The South Tasman Rise (STR) is bounded to the west by the Tasman Fracture Zone extending south to Antarctica. Adjacent to the STR, the fracture zone is represented by a scarp up to 2000 m high with slopes of 15–20°. The scarp consists of continental faultblocks dipping landward. Beyond the scarp to the west is a string of sheared parallel highs, and beyond that is lightly sedimented Oligocene oceanic crust 4200–4600 m deep with distinct E-W spreading fabric. The eastern margin of the bathymetric STR trends about 320° and is structurally controlled. The depression between it and the continental East Tasman Plateau (ETP) is heavily sedimented; its western part is underlain by thinned continental crust and its central part by oceanic crust of Late Cretaceous to Early Tertiary age. The southern margin of the STR is formed by N-S transform faults and south-dipping normal faults.The STR is cut into two major terrains by a N-S fracture zone at 146°15E. The western terrain is characterised by rotated basement blocks and intervening basins mostly trending 270°–290°. The eastern terrain is characterised by basement blocks and intervening strike-slip basins trending 300°–340°. Recent dredging of basement rocks suggests that the western terrain has Antarctic affinities, whereas the eastern terrain has Tasmanian affinities.Stretching and slow spreading between Australia and Antarctica was in a NW direction from 130–45 Ma, and fast spreading was in a N-S direction thereafter. The western STR terrain was attached to Antarctica during the early movement, and moved down the west coast of Tasmania along a 320° shear zone, forming the landward-dipping continental blocks along the present COB. The eastern terrain either moved with the western terrain, or was welded to it along the 146°15 E fracture zone in the Early Tertiary. At 45 Ma, fast spreading started in a N-S direction, and after some probable movement along the 146°15E fracture zone, the west and east STR terrains were welded together and became part of Australia.  相似文献   

8.
Four uniformly spaced regional gravity traverses and the available seismic data across the western continental margin of India, starting from the western Indian shield extending into the deep oceanic areas of the eastern Arabian Sea, have been utilized to delineate the lithospheric structure. The seismically constrained gravity models along these four traverses suggest that the crustal structure below the northern part of the margin within the Deccan Volcanic Province (DVP) is significantly different from the margin outside the DVP. The lithosphere thickness, in general, varies from 110–120 km in the central and southern part of the margin to as much as 85–90 km below the Deccan Plateau and Cambay rift basin in the north. The Eastern basin is characterised by thinned rift stage continental crust which extends as far as Laxmi basin in the north and the Laccadive ridge in the south. At the ocean–continent transition (OCT), crustal density differences between the Laxmi ridge and the Laxmi basin are not sufficient to distinguish continental as against an oceanic crust through gravity modeling. However, 5-6 km thick oceanic crust below the Laxmi basin is a consistent gravity option. Significantly, the models indicate the presence of a high density layer of 3.0 g/cm3 in the lower crust in almost whole of the northern part of the region between the Laxmi ridge and the pericontinental northwest shield region in the DVP, and also below Laccadive ridge in the southern part. The Laxmi ridge is underlain by continental crust upto a depth of 11 km and a thick high density material (3.0 g/cm3) between 11–26 km. The Pratap ridge is indicated as a shallow basement high in the upper part of the crust formed during rifting. The 15 –17 km thick oceanic crust below Laccadive ridge is seen further thickened by high density underplated material down to Moho depths of 24–25 km which indicate formation of the ridge along Reunion hotspot trace.  相似文献   

9.
Mesoscale eddies constitute the most energetic component of the variability of ocean currents. An attempt has been made for the detection of oceanic mesoscale eddy signatures over the Southern Indian Oceanic (SIO) regions using the dynamic topography derived from TOPEX/POSEIDON (T/P) altimeter data, by the signal processing technique, called matched filtering. After applying all the ocean and atmospheric corrections, data of a complete cycle of T/P over SIO has been used for detection of eddy signatures. The geoid undulations are removed from the data of corrected sea surface height from T/P and the resulting dynamic topographic data are passed through a matched filter designed to detect a generic eddy signature of Gaussian signal embedded in noise. The filter is optimized to detect eddies with amplitude 20 to 30 cm and diameters roughly 100?250 km. Out of all the analyzed data of T/P orbits over SIO a few examples are presented for brevity. Qualitative verification of eddies is done with some independent T/P sea level anomaly data over the region. The analysis shows that the matched filtering technique is most suitable for monitoring eddy signatures along the subsatellite track instantly over the remote and most hostile regions of the southern global oceans.  相似文献   

10.
Analysis in both the x—t and —p domains of high-quality Expanded Spread Profiles across the Møre Margin show that many arrivals may be enhanced be selective ray tracing and velocity filtering combined with conventional data reduction techniques. In terms of crustal structure the margin can be divided into four main areas: 1) a thicker than normal oceanic crust in the eastern Norway Basin; 2) expanded crust with a Moho depth of 22 km beneath the huge extrusive complex constructed during early Tertiary breakup; 3) the Møre Basin where up to 13–14 km of sediments overlie a strongly extended outer part with a Moho depth at 20 km west of the Ona High; and 4) a region with a 25–27 km Moho depth between the high and the Norwegian coast. The velocity data restricts the continent-ocean boundary to a 15–30 km wide zone beneath the seaward dipping reflector wedges. The crust west of the landward edge of the inner flow is classified as transitional. This region as well as the adjacent oceanic crust is soled by a 7.2–7.4 km s–1 lower crustal body which may extend beneath the entire region that experienced early Tertiary crustal extension. At the landward end of the transect a 8.5 km s–1 layer near the base of the crust is recognized. A possible relationship with large positive gravity anomalies and early Tertiary alkaline intrusions is noted.  相似文献   

11.
Analyses of about 6000 km of processed magnetic data in the central Bay of Bengal using Analytical Signal Processing and Werner Deconvolution techniques revealed that the depth to top of the magnetic basement varies between 5 and 12 km from the sea surface, where the water column thickness is about 3.4 km. These inferred depths are comparable to the reported acoustic basement depths. The basement map derived from magnetic interpretation defines the general configuration of the central Bay of Bengal. The N10–12° W trending subsurface 85° E Ridge buried under 2 to 3 km thick sediments is a prominent tectonic feature. Offshore basins characterised by deeper magnetic basement (9 km) and 100–200 km wide are present on either sides of the ridge. These basins were filled with 6–8 km thick lower Cretaceous to recent sediments. Integrated geophysical study depicts that the magnetic basement is characterised by NW-SE, NE-SW, NNE-SSW, N10-12° W and E-W trending structural features that are associated with the lower Cretaceous ocean floor. The Analytical Signal Processing and Werner Deconvolution techniques proved to be effective in determining the depth to the basement in areas covered by thick sediment overburden and characterized by a complex geologic/tectonic framework.  相似文献   

12.
The South China Sea (SCS) is a marginal sea off shore Southeast Asia. Based on magnetic study, oceanic crust has been suggested in the northernmost SCS. However, the crustal structure of the northernmost SCS was poorly known. To elaborate the crustal structures in the northernmost SCS and off southwest Taiwan, we have analyzed 20 multi-channel seismic profiles of the region. We have also performed gravity modeling to understand the Moho depth variation. The volcanic basement deepens southeastwards while the Moho depth shoals southeastwards. Except for the continental margin, the northernmost SCS can be divided into three tectonic regions: the disturbed and undisturbed oceanic crust (8–12 km thick) in the southwest, a trapped oceanic crust (8 km thick) between the Luzon-Ryukyu Transform Plate Boundary (LRTPB) and Formosa Canyon, and the area to the north of the Formosa Canyon which has the thickest sediments. Instead of faulting, the sediments across the LRTPB have only displayed differential subsidence offset of about 0.5–1 s in the northeast side, indicating that the LRTPB is no longer active. The gravity modeling has shown a relatively thin crust beneath the LRTPB, demonstrating the sheared zone character along the LRTPB. However, probably because of post-spreading volcanism, only the transtension-shearing phenomenon of volcanic basement in the northwest and southeast ends of the LRTPB can be observed. These two basement-fractured sites coincide with low gravity anomalies. Intensive erosion has prevailed over the whole channel of the Formosa Canyon.  相似文献   

13.
The structural framework of the southern part of the Shackleton Fracture Zone has been investigated through the analysis of a 130-km-long multichannel seismic reflection profile acquired orthogonally to the fracture zone near 60° S. The Shackleton Fracture Zone is a 800-km-long, mostly rectilinear and pronounced bathymetric lineation joining the westernmost South Scotia Ridge to southern South America south of Cape Horn, separating the western Scotia Sea plate from the Antarctic plate. Conventional processing applied to the seismic data outlines the main structures of the Shackleton Fracture Zone, but only the use of enhanced techniques, such as accurate velocity analyses and pre-stack depth migration, provides a good definition of the acoustic basement and the architecture of the sedimentary sequences. In particular, a strong and mostly continuous reflector found at about 8.0 s two-way traveltime is very clear across the entire section and is interpreted as the Moho discontinuity. Data show a complex system of troughs developed along the eastern flank of the crustal ridge, containing tilted and rotated blocks, and the presence of a prominent listric normal fault developed within the oceanic crust. Positive flower structures developed within the oceanic basement indicate strike-slip tectonism and partial reactivation of pre-existing faults. Present-day tectonic activity is found mostly in correspondence to the relief, whereas fault-induced deformation is negligible across the entire trough system. This indicates that the E–W-directed stress regime present in the Drake Passage region is mainly dissipated along a narrow zone within the Shackleton Ridge axis. A reappraisal of all available magnetic anomaly identifications in the western Scotia Sea and in the former Phoenix plate, in conjunction with new magnetic profiles acquired to the east of the Shackleton Fracture Zone off the Tierra del Fuego continental margin, has allowed us to propose a simple reconstruction of Shackleton Fracture Zone development in the general context of the Drake Passage opening.  相似文献   

14.
The basement topography and the free-air gravity along two profiles in the central North Atlantic between 16° and 25° N, crossing a number of fracture zones, were divided in three wavelength intervals. Two-dimensional modelling shows that the short wavelength (>50 km) gravity is well explained by uncompensated topography (mainly spreading topography). For the long wavelengths (>200 km) there is no correlation of topography and gravity. In principle this topography is compensated. Residual anomalies comprise the Ridge effect as well as regional anomalies related to depth anomalies. The 50 to 200km band-pass filtered topography and gravity contain relevant information on fracture zones. Models require a base of the crust that parallels the topography rather than a form of regional compensation. For an explanation of this crustal model that has the appearance of frozen in normal faults we have to consider the typical morphology as created in the transform domain. The geophysical processes that cause this morphology are still an object of study.  相似文献   

15.
The Ocean Drilling Program (ODP) initiated drilling at Site 1256D in the Guatemala Basin, about 1,000 km off the East Pacific Rise to penetrate plutonic rocks, anticipated to be relatively shallow in this region, formed at an ultra-fast spreading rate. IODP Expedition E312 successfully drilled into gabbros at ~1,150 m in basement. Multi-channel seismic traces show weak laterally coherent sub-basement reflections at borehole depths. Synthetic reflectivity seismograms were computed using a Ricker wavelet and impedance profiles from borehole sonic logs. These seismograms show significant sub-basement amplitude peaks. A zero-offset vertical seismic profile, shot on E312, was processed to investigate the authenticity of these reflections and their relationship to borehole geology. A dual scheme of the median filtering and F–K dip filtering was used. Tests with synthetic seismograms indicate the approach is effective at reasonable SNR levels. Downgoing energy is clearly identified but negligible upgoing energy is visible over random noise. These results indicate that lava flows and igneous contacts in upper ocean crust have significant topography on lateral scales less than the Fresnel Zone (~300 m) due to igneous and tectonic processes.  相似文献   

16.
New swath bathymetric, multichannel seismic and magnetic data reveal the complexity of the intersection between the extinct West Scotia Ridge (WSR) and the Shackleton Fracture Zone (SFZ), a first-order NW-SE trending high-relief ridge cutting across the Drake Passage. The SFZ is composed of shallow, ridge segments and depressions, largely parallel to the fracture zone with an `en echelon' pattern in plan view. These features are bounded by tectonic lineaments, interpreted as faults. The axial valley of the spreading center intersects the fracture zone in a complex area of deformation, where N120° E lineaments and E–W faults anastomose on both sides of the intersection. The fracture zone developed within an extensional regime, which facilitated the formation of oceanic transverse ridges parallel to the fracture zone and depressions attributed to pull-apart basins, bounded by normal and strike-slip faults.On the multichannel seismic (MCS) profiles, the igneous crust is well stratified, with numerous discontinuous high-amplitude reflectors and many irregular diffractions at the top, and a thicker layer below. The latter has sparse and weak reflectors, although it locally contains strong, dipping reflections. A bright, slightly undulating reflector observed below the spreading center axial valley at about 0.75 s (twt) depth in the igneous crust is interpreted as an indication of the relict axial magma chamber. Deep, high-amplitude subhorizontal and slightly dipping reflections are observed between 1.8 and 3.2 s (twt) below sea floor, but are preferentially located at about 2.8–3.0 s (twt) depth. Where these reflections are more continuous they may represent the Mohorovicic seismic discontinuity. More locally, short (2–3 km long), very high-amplitude reflections observed at 3.6 and 4.3 s (twt) depth below sea floor are attributed to an interlayered upper mantle transition zone. The MCS profiles also show a pattern of regularly spaced, steep-inclined reflectors, which cut across layers 2 and 3 of the oceanic crust. These reflectors are attributed to deformation under a transpressional regime that developed along the SFZ, shortly after spreading ceased at the WSR. Magnetic anomalies 5 to 5 E may be confidently identified on the flanks of the WSR. Our spreading model assumes slow rates (ca. 10–20 mm/yr), with slight asymmetries favoring the southeastern flank between 5C and 5, and the northwestern flank between 5 and extinction. The spreading rate asymmetry means that accretion was slower during formation of the steeper, shallower, southeastern flank than of the northwestern flank.  相似文献   

17.
In this study, we construct a 3-D shear wave velocity structure of the crust and upper mantle in South China Sea and its surrounding regions by surface wave dispersion analysis. We use the multiple filter technique to calculate the group velocity dispersion curves of fundamental mode Rayleigh and Love waves with periods from 14 s to 120 s for earthquakes occurred around the Southeast Asia. We divide the study region (80° E–140° E, 16° S–32° N) into 3° × 3° blocks and use the constrained block inversion method to get the regionalized dispersion curve for each block. At some chosen periods, we put together laterally the regionalized group velocities from different blocks at the same period to get group velocity image maps. These maps show that there is significant heterogeneity in the group velocity of the study region. The dispersion curve of each block was then processed by surface wave inversion method to obtain the shear wave velocity structure. Finally, we put the shear wave velocity structures of all the blocks together to obtain the three-dimensional shear wave velocity structure of crust and upper mantle. The three-dimensional shear wave velocity structure shows that the shear wave velocity distribution in the crust and upper mantle of the South China Sea and its surrounding regions displays significant heterogeneity. There are significant differences among the crustal thickness, the lithospheric thickness and the shear wave velocity of the lid in upper mantle of different structure units. This study shows that the South China Sea Basin, southeast Sulu Sea Basin and Celebes Sea Basin have thinner crust. The thickness of crust in South China Sea Basin is 5–10 km; in Indochina is 25–40 km; in Peninsular Malaysia is 30–35 km; in Borneo is 30–35 km; in Palawan is 35 km; in the Philippine Islands is 30–35 km, in Sunda Shelf is 30–35 km, in Southeast China is 30–40 km, in West Philippine Basin is 5–10 km. The South China Sea Basin has a lithosphere with thickness of about 45–50 km, and the shear wave velocity of its lid is about 4.3–4.7 km/s; Indochina has a lithosphere with thickness of about 55–70 km, and the shear wave velocity of its lid is about 4.3–4.5 km/s; Borneo has a lithosphere with thickness of about 55–60 km, and the shear wave velocity of its lid is about 4.1–4.3 km/s; the Philippine Islands has a lithosphere with thickness of about 55–60 km, and the shear wave velocity of its lid is about 4.2–4.3 km/s, West Philippine Basin has a lithosphere with thickness of about 50–55 km, and the shear wave velocity of its lid is about 4.7–4.8 km/s, Sunda Self has a lithosphere with thickness of about 55–65 km, and the shear wave velocity of its lid is about 4.3 km/s. The Red-River Fault Zone probably penetrates to a depth of at least 200 km and is plausibly the boundary between the South China Block and the Indosinia Block.  相似文献   

18.
Sea surface height profiles derived from 2‐year, repeat track, Geosat altimeter data have been compared with a regional gravimetric geoid in the western North Sea, computed using a geopotential model and terrestrial gravity data. The comparison encompasses 18 Geosat profiles covering a 750 × 850 km area of the North Sea. After a second‐order polynomial was used to model the long‐wavelength differences which cannot be clearly separated over an area of this size, results show agreement to better than ±3 cm for wavelengths between approximately 20 and 750 km. In regions where terrestrial gravity data were not available to improve the geoid, similar comparisons with the OSU91A geopotential model alone show differences of up to ±6 cm. This illustrates the importance of incorporating local gravity data in regional geoid computations, and partly validates the regional gravimetric geoid solution and Geosat sea surface profiles in the western North Sea. It is concluded that, in marine areas where the sea surface topography is known to be small in magnitude, Geosat sea surface profiles can act as an independent control on gravimetric geoids in the medium‐wavelength range.  相似文献   

19.
On the Mid-Atlantic Ridge (MAR) from 34°–35.5° S, three ridge segments span the 108 km distance between the Meteor Fracture Zone (FZ) and the Montevideo FZ. Each of these segments is perpendicular to the adjoining transforms. Magnetic isochrons in the southern half of the region are oblique to the spreading direction and are offset from the morphological expression of the plate boundary, revealing a transition from oblique to orthogonal spreading within the last 750,000 years. Changes in orientation and cross-sectional form of the rift valley, as modified by tectonic processes, are preserved in the off-axis abyssal-hill fabric. We present a new statistical method for describing size and orientation of abyssal hills based on local slopes. For a given offset, the range of sorted slopes from the first to third quartile provides a robust estimate of topographic variability. The variability can be parametrized by azimuthal direction, plan-view aspect ratio, characteristic height and width. We resolve lineation azimuth within 6°, and characteristic height, width and aspect ratio within 20–30%, using 18 by 21 km sample boxes crossed by multiple Sea Beam swaths covering approximately 30% of the box. In the northern portion of the survey, the azimuth is mainly ridge parallel, while in the southern portion, the azimuth rotates 23° clockwise from ridge strike. Characteristic height and width are greater in the southern half than in the northern half, while aspect ratios are lower. The asymmetry of quartiles about the median slope provides evidence that inward-facing normal faults bounding the rift valley are a significant source of topography. Fabric disrupted by migration of small-offset discontinuities has higher than average characteristic height. Characteristic height and width correlate positively with residual gravity, an indicator of crustal thinning. A residual gravity low, possibly the current focus of upwelling, coincides with a newly formed spreading axis. These correlations suggest that evolution of ridge geometry can be controlled by crust and mantle thermal structure. Either variation in magma supply, resulting in changes in stress normal to the ridge axis, or a major realignment of the Montevideo Transform, temporarily resulting in increased shear stress across newly activated faults, may have been responsible for changes in orientation and morphology of the spreading center.  相似文献   

20.
In 1994, a joint Japanese-American dive program utilizing the worlds deepest diving active research submersible (SHINKAI 6500) was carried out at the western ridge-transform intersection (RTI) of the Mid-Atlantic Ridge and Kane transform in the central North Atlantic Ocean. A total of 15 dives were completed along with surface-ship geophysical mapping of bathymetry, magnetic and gravity fields. Dives at the RTI traced the neovolcanic zone up to, and for a short distance (2.5 km) along, the Kane transform. At the RTI, the active trace of the transform is marked by a narrow valley (<50 m wide) that separates the recent lavas of the neovolcanic zone from the south wall of the transform. The south wall of the transform at the western RTI consists of a diabase section near its base between 5000 and 4600 m depth overlain by basaltic lavas, with no evidence of gabbro or deeper crustal rocks. The south wall is undergoing normal faulting with considerable strike-slip component. The lavas of the neovolcanic zone at the RTI are highly magnetized (17 A m–1) compared to the lavas of the south wall (4 A m–1), consistent with their age difference. The trace of the active transform changes eastwards into a prominent median ridge, which is composed of heavily sedimented and highly serpentinized peridotites. Submersible observations made from SHINKAI find that the western RTI of the Kane transform has a very different seafloor morphology and lithology compared to the eastern RTI. Large rounded massifs exposing lower crustal rocks are found on the inside corner of the eastern RTI whereas volcanic ridge and valley terrain with hooked ridges are found on the outside corner of the eastern RTI. The western RTI is much less asymmetric with both inside and outside corner crust showing a preponderance of volcanic terrain. The dominance of low-angle detachment faulting at the eastern RTI has resulted in a seafloor morphology and architecture that is diagnostic of the process whereas crust formed at the WMARK RTI must clearly be operating under a different set of conditions that suppresses the initiation of such faulting.  相似文献   

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