Publication Date:
2022-05-26
Description:
Author Posting. © American Geophysical Union, 2019. This article is posted here by permission of American Geophysical Union for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Geophysical Research Letters, 46(9), (2019):4664-4673, doi:10.1029/2019GL082201.
Description:
Accretion of the lower crust at mid‐ocean ridges is a debated topic, with modern seismic observations pointing to a complex magmatic system that includes an axial multisill system of middle‐ and lower‐crustal melt lenses and near‐ and off‐axis melt bodies. Here we revisit the hot spot‐influenced section of the western Galápagos Spreading Centre and reprocess multichannel seismic reflection data using a wide‐angle seismic tomography model. Our new images show that the magma reservoir in the lower crust at this ridge section is intruded with partially molten melt lenses. The images also show evidence for off‐axis melt lenses, magmatic‐hydrothermal interactions and Moho reflections in this region. We conclude that the similarities between the axial crustal structure of this hot spot‐influenced mid‐ocean ridge and the multisill magmatic structure imaged at the East Pacific Rise indicate that these features are common along the global mid‐ocean ridge system where seafloor spreading is dominated by magmatic accretion.
Description:
Seismic data used in this study are available at https://doi.org/10.1594/IEDA/314480 (Detrick & Sinton, 2014). Data processing was conducted with Emerson‐Paradigm Software package Echos licensed to Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution under Paradigm Academic Software Program. B. B. is funded by the Graduate School of the National Oceanography Centre Southampton UK. We thank two anonymous reviewers for their constructive and insightful comments that helped us in improving the manuscript and A. S. Soule for fruitful discussions.
Description:
2019-10-29
Repository Name:
Woods Hole Open Access Server
Type:
Article
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