Central role of detachment faults in accretion of slow-spreading oceanic lithosphere

Author Posting. © Macmillan Publishers, 2008. This is the author's version of the work. It is posted here by permission of Macmillan Publishers for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Nature 455 (2008): 790-794, doi:10.1038/nature07333.The formation of oceanic detachment faults is well established from inactive, corrugated fault planes exposed on seafloor formed along ridges spreading at less than 80 km/My1-4. These faults can accommodate extension for up to 1-3 Myrs5, and are associated with one of two contrasting modes of accretion operating along the northern Mid-Atlantic Ridge (MAR). The first is symmetrical accretion, dominated by magmatic processes with subsidiary high-angle faulting and formation of abyssal hills on both flanks. The second is asymmetrical accretion involving an active detachment fault6 along one ridge flank. An examination of ~2500 km of the MAR between 12.5 and 35°N reveals asymmetrical accretion along almost half of the ridge. Hydrothermal activity identified to date in the study region is closely associated with asymmetrical accretion, which also exhibits high-levels of near continuous hydroacoustically and teleseismically recorded seismicity. Enhanced seismicity is probably generated along detachment faults accommodating a sizeable proportion of the total plate separation. In contrast, symmetrical segments have lower levels of seismicity, which concentrates primarily at their ends. Basalts erupted along asymmetrical segments have compositions that are consistent with crystallization at higher pressures than basalts from symmetrical segments, and with lower extents of partial melting of the mantle. Both seismic and geochemical evidence indicate that the axial lithosphere is thicker and colder at asymmetrical sections of the ridge, either because associated hydrothermal circulation efficiently penetrates to greater depths, or because the rising mantle is cooler. We suggest that much of the variability in seafloor morphology, seismicity and basalt chemistry found along slow-spreading ridges can be thus attributed to the frequent involvement of detachments in oceanic lithospheric accretion.Supported by CNRS (JE), NSF (DKS, HS, JC, CL and SE), WHOI (JE, DKS, HS and JC), Harvard University (JE, CL and SE), Univ. of Leeds (JC), and MIT (JE)

Mid-ocean ridge seismicity reveals extreme types of ocean lithosphere

Along ultraslow-spreading ridges, where oceanic tectonic plates drift very slowly apart, conductive cooling is thought to limit mantle melting1 and melt production has been inferred to be highly discontinuous2, 3, 4. Along such spreading centres, long ridge sections without any igneous crust alternate with magmatic sections that host massive volcanoes capable of strong earthquakes5. Hence melt supply, lithospheric composition and tectonic structure seem to vary considerably along the axis of the slowest-spreading ridges6. However, owing to the lack of seismic data, the lithospheric structure of ultraslow ridges is poorly constrained. Here we describe the structure and accretion modes of two end-member types of oceanic lithosphere using a detailed seismicity survey along 390 kilometres of ultraslow-spreading ridge axis. We observe that amagmatic sections lack shallow seismicity in the upper 15 kilometres of the lithosphere, but unusually contain earthquakes down to depths of 35 kilometres. This observation implies a cold, thick lithosphere, with an upper aseismic zone that probably reflects substantial serpentinization. We find that regions of magmatic lithosphere thin dramatically under volcanic centres, and infer that the resulting topography of the lithosphere–asthenosphere boundary could allow along-axis melt flow, explaining the uneven crustal production at ultraslow-spreading ridges. The seismicity data indicate that alteration in ocean lithosphere may reach far deeper than previously thought, with important implications towards seafloor deformation and fluid circulation

Continuous exhumation of mantle-derived rocks at the Southwest Indian Ridge for 11 million years

The global mid-ocean ridge system, where tectonic plates diverge, is traditionally thought of as the largest single volcanic feature on the Earth. Yet, wide expanses of smooth sea floor in the easternmost part of the Southwest Indian Ridge in the Indian Ocean lacks the hummocky morphology that is typical for submarine volcanism. At other slow-spreading ridges, the sea floor can extend by faulting the existing lithosphere, along only one side of the ridge axis. However, the smooth sea floor in the easternmost Southwest Indian Ridge also lacks the corrugated texture created by such faulting. Instead, the sea floor is smooth on both sides of the ridge axis and is thought to be composed of altered mantle-derived rocks. Here we use side-scan sonar to image the sea floor and dredge samples to analyse the composition of two sections of the Southwest Indian Ridge, between 62- 050 E and 64- 400 E, where the sea floor formed over the past 11 million years. We show that the smooth floor is almost entirely composed of seawater-altered mantle-derived rocks that were brought to the surface by large detachment faults on both sides of the ridge axis. Faulting accommodates almost 100% of plate divergence and the detachment faults have repeatedly flipped polarity.We suggest that this tectonic process could also explain the exhumation of mantle-derived rocks at the magma-poor margins of rifted continents