The nature and origin of the sediments and crust of the Murray Ridge System and northern Indus Fan are discussed. The uppermost unit consists of Middle Miocene to recent channel–levee complexes typical of submarine fans. This unit is underlain by a second unit composed of hemipelagic to pelagic sediments deposited during the drift phase after the break-up of India–Seychelles–Africa. A predrift sequence of assumed Mesozoic age occurring only as observed above basement ridges is composed of highly consolidated rocks. Different types of the acoustic basement were detected, which reflection seismic pattern, magnetic anomalies and gravity field modeling indicate to be of continental character. The continental crust is extremely thinned in the northern Indus Fan, lacking a typical block-faulted structure. The Indian continent–ocean transition is marked on single MCS profiles by sequences of seaward-dipping reflectors (SDR). In the northwestern Arabian Sea, the Indian plate margin is characterized by several phases of volcanism and deformation revealed from interpretation of multichannel seismic profiles and magnetic anomalies. From this study, thinned continental crust spreads between the northern Murray Ridge System and India underneath the northern Indus Fan. 相似文献
The Late Cretaceous–Cenozoic evolution of the eastern North Sea region is investigated by 3D thermo-mechanical modelling. The model quantifies the integrated effects on basin evolution of large-scale lithospheric processes, rheology, strength heterogeneities, tectonics, eustasy, sedimentation and erosion.
The evolution of the area is influenced by a number of factors: (1) thermal subsidence centred in the central North Sea providing accommodation space for thick sediment deposits; (2) 250-m eustatic fall from the Late Cretaceous to present, which causes exhumation of the North Sea Basin margins; (3) varying sediment supply; (4) isostatic adjustments following erosion and sedimentation; (5) Late Cretaceous–early Cenozoic Alpine compressional phases causing tectonic inversion of the Sorgenfrei–Tornquist Zone (STZ) and other weak zones.
The stress field and the lateral variations in lithospheric strength control lithospheric deformation under compression. The lithosphere is relatively weak in areas where Moho is deep and the upper mantle warm and weak. In these areas the lithosphere is thickened during compression producing surface uplift and erosion (e.g., at the Ringkøbing–Fyn High and in the southern part of Sweden). Observed late Cretaceous–early Cenozoic shallow water depths at the Ringkøbing–Fyn High as well as Cenozoic surface uplift in southern Sweden (the South Swedish Dome (SSD)) are explained by this mechanism.
The STZ is a prominent crustal structural weakness zone. Under compression, this zone is inverted and its surface uplifted and eroded. Contemporaneously, marginal depositional troughs develop. Post-compressional relaxation causes a regional uplift of this zone.
The model predicts sediment distributions and paleo-water depths in accordance with observations. Sediment truncation and exhumation at the North Sea Basin margins are explained by fall in global sea level, isostatic adjustments to exhumation, and uplift of the inverted STZ. This underlines the importance of the mechanisms dealt with in this paper for the evolution of intra-cratonic sedimentary basins. 相似文献
We present new and reprocessed seismic reflection data from the area where the southeast and southwest Greenland margins intersected to form a triple junction south of Greenland in the early Tertiary. During breakup at 56 Ma, thick igneous crust was accreted along the entire 1300-km-long southeast Greenland margin from the Greenland Iceland Ridge to, and possibly 100 km beyond, the triple junction into the Labrador Sea. However, highly extended and thin crust 250 km to the west of the triple junction suggests that magmatically starved crustal formation occurred on the southwest Greenland margin at the same time. Thus, a transition from a volcanic to a non-volcanic margin over only 100–200 km is observed. Magmatism related to the impact of the Iceland plume below the North Atlantic around 61 Ma is known from central-west and southeast Greenland. The new seismic data also suggest the presence of a small volcanic plateau of similar age close to the triple junction. The extent of initial plume-related volcanism inferred from these observations is explained by a model of lateral flow of plume material that is guided by relief at the base of the lithosphere. Plume mantle is channelled to great distances provided that significant melting does not take place. Melting causes cooling and dehydration of the plume mantle. The associated viscosity increase acts against lateral flow and restricts plume material to its point of entry into an actively spreading rift. We further suggest that thick Archaean lithosphere blocked direct flow of plume material into the magma-starved southwest Greenland margin while the plume was free to flow into the central west and east Greenland margins. The model is consistent with a plume layer that is only moderately hotter, 100–200°C, than ambient mantle temperature, and has a thickness comparable to lithospheric thickness variations, 50–100 km. Lithospheric architecture, the timing of continental rifting and viscosity changes due to melting of the plume material are therefore critical parameters for understanding the distribution of magmatism. 相似文献
To improve the accuracy of the numerical evaluation through the 3-D finite difference method, the surface boundary conditions
are added to modify the old program. The author has tested the new program by making calculations for the model constructed
by Wanamaker, et al (1984). The comparison between the numerical results obtained from this paper and those by Wannamaker, et al (1984) indicates that a pronounced improvement is realized in the evaluation of the horizontal magnetic components. Moreover,
better calculations for the vertical magnetic components are also obtainable by using the new program. 相似文献
We study the October 18, MW = 7.1, 1992 Atrato earthquake, and its foreshocks and aftershocks, which occurred in the Atrato valley, northwestern Colombia. The main shock was preceded by several foreshocksof which the MW = 6.6, October 17 earthquacke was the largest. Inparticular, we examine foreshocks and aftershocks performing joint-hypocenter relocations using high quality Pn and Sn wave readingsfrom permanent regional networks. We observed a few hours prior to the main shock a sudden increase of foreshocks. Maybe this could be used as a predictor since foreshocks have been known for other major events in the region. Our locations align for 90 km with a trend of 5° ±4° in agreement with the Harvard CMT solution showing the faultplane trending 9° to be the plane of rupture. In relation to theepicenter of the main shock, maximum intensities were located to thesouth, consistent with a rupture that traveled from north to south witha larger energy release in the south as suggested by an empirical Green'sfunction study (Li and Toksöz, 1993; Ammon et al., 1994). The boundarybetween the Panama and North Andes blocks has been placed close to thePanama-Colombia border as either a sharp boundary or a diffuse zone. TheAtrato earthquake, however, shows that the plate boundary between thePanama and North Andes microblocks is a diffuse deformation zone. Thiszone has a width of at least 2° stretching from 78°W to 76°W. Quantification of earthquake moment release (during the past30 years) in this zone shows a similar amount of moment release in thewestern and eastern parts of this zone. 相似文献
