Publication Date:
2017-04-04
Description:
The recently released gravity potential field development derived from the Gravity
Recovery and Climate Experiment satellite allows an unprecedented opportunity to
use the gravity field to make global comparisons of structures of geological interest.
The spatial resolution of the gravity field is sufficiently good to map large-scale
or intracratonic and cratonic basins, as the areal extent of these basins is 0.5 ×
106 km2 and greater. We present the gravity anomaly, Bouguer, geoid and terrain
corrected geoid fields for a selection of nine large-scale basins and show that the
satellite-derived field can be used to successfully identify distinctive structures of these
basins, e.g., extinct rifts underlying the basins and generally the isostatic state. The
studied basins are the Eastern Barents Sea, West Siberian, Tarim, Congo, Michigan,
Amazon, Solim ˜ oes, Parnaiba and Paran`a basins. We complete the mapping of the
gravity field with a description of the basins in terms of areal extension and depth,
sedimentary age and presence and age of volcanism. Interpretation of the satellite
gravity anomalies and considerations regarding the crustal thickness as known from
seismic investigations, allows us to conclude that for the greater part of the basins
there is evidence for high-density material in the lower crust and/or upper mantle.
This density anomaly is, at least partly, compensating for the low-density sedimentary
infill instead of the crustal thinning mechanism. For our selection of basins, crustal
thickness variations and Moho topography cannot be considered as mechanisms of
compensation of the sedimentary loading, which is a clear difference to well-defined
rift basins.
Description:
In press
Description:
13
Description:
JCR Journal
Description:
reserved
Keywords:
GRACE
;
Basins
;
gravity
;
isostasy
;
Cratonic basin
;
Congo Basin
;
Tarim Basin
;
Amazon Basin
;
East Barents Sea Basin
;
Parana' basin
;
Oil maturation
;
LIP
;
Basaltic province
;
04. Solid Earth::04.02. Exploration geophysics::04.02.99. General or miscellaneous
Repository Name:
Istituto Nazionale di Geofisica e Vulcanologia (INGV)
Type:
article
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