Publication Date:
2022-10-26
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 Journal of Geophysical Research-Solid Earth 124 (2019): 10023–10055, doi: 10.1029/2019JB017648.
Description:
We studied long‐term evolution of nontransform discontinuities (NTDs) on the Mid‐Atlantic Ridge from 0‐ to ~20‐ to 25‐Ma crust using plate reconstructions of multibeam bathymetry, long‐range HMR1 sidescan sonar, residual mantle Bouguer gravity anomaly (RMBA), and gravity‐derived crustal thickness. NTDs have propagated north and south with respect to flowlines of relative plate motion and both rapidly and slowly compared to the half spreading rate; at times they have been quasi‐stable. Fast, short‐term (〈2 Myr) propagation is driven by reduced magma supply (increased tectonic extension) in the propagating ridge tip when NTD ridge‐axis offsets are small (≲5 km). Propagation at larger offsets generally is slower and longer term. These NTDs can show classic structures of rift propagation including inner and outer pseudofaults and crustal blocks transferred between ridge flanks by discontinuous jumps of the propagating ridge tip. In all cases crustal transfer occurs within the NTD valley. Aside from ridge‐axis offset, the evolution of NTDs appears to be controlled by three factors: (1) gross volume and distribution of magma supplied to ridge segments as controlled by 3‐D heterogeneities in mantle fertility and/or dynamic upwelling; this controls fundamental ridge segmentation. (2) The lithospheric plumbing system through which magma is delivered to the crust. (3) The consequent focusing of tectonic extension in magma‐poor parts of spreading segments, typically at segment ends, which can drive propagation. We also observe long‐wavelength (5‐10 Myr) RMBA asymmetry between the conjugate ridge flanks, and we attribute this to asymmetric distribution of density anomalies in the upper mantle.
Description:
We thank Tingting Wang for providing plate‐reconstruction codes, Ross Parnell‐Turner for technical support, and Anouk Beniest and an anonymous reviewer for comments that helped to improve the manuscript. We benefited greatly from discussion with the Deep Sea Geodynamics Group of the South China Sea Institute of Oceanology. Figures were drawn using the GMT software of Wessel and Smith (1998). This study was supported by National Natural Science Foundation of China (91628301, 41890813, and U1606401), Chinese Academy of Sciences (Y4SL021001, QYZDY‐SSW‐DQC005, and 133244KYSB20180029), Chinese National 985 Project (1350141509), International Exchange Program for Graduate Students of Tongji University (2016020006), China Scholarship Council (201706260034), and Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. We thank the crews and science parties of the ARSRP, MAREAST, MODE94, and MODE98 expeditions for their contributions to data acquisition. ARSRP and MAREAST data acquisition was funded by Office of Naval Research grant N00014‐90‐J‐6121 and by U.S. National Science Foundation grant OCE‐9503561, respectively. Access to the original data used in this study is available at https://doi.org/10.26025/z2z7‐kd89.
Description:
2020-03-11
Keywords:
Mid‐Atlantic Ridge
;
Nontransform discontinuity
;
Plate reconstruction
;
Propagating rift
Repository Name:
Woods Hole Open Access Server
Type:
Article
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