Twenty-five years of geodetic measurements along the Tadjoura-Asal rift system, Djibouti, East Africa

International audienceSince most of Tadjoura-Asal rift system sits on dry land in the Afar depression near the triple junction between the Arabia, Somalia, and Nubia plates, it is an ideal natural laboratory for studying rifting processes. We analyze these processes in light of a time series of geodetic measurements from 1978 through. A network of about 30 GPS sites covers the Republic of Djibouti. Additional points were also measured in Yemen and Ethiopia. Stations lying in the Danakil block have almost the same velocity as Arabian plate, indicating that opening near the southern tip of the Red Sea is almost totally accommodated in the Afar depression. Inside Djibouti, the Asal-Ghoubbet rift system accommodates 16 ± 1 mm/yr of opening perpendicular to the rift axis and exhibits a pronounced asymmetry with essentially null deformation on its southwestern side and significant deformation on its northeastern side. This rate, slightly higher than the large-scale Arabia-Somalia motion (13 ± 1 mm/yr), suggests transient variations associated with relaxation processes following the Asal-Ghoubbet seismovolcanic sequence of 1978. Inside the rift, the deformation pattern exhibits a clear two-dimensional pattern. Along the rift axis, the rate decreases to the northwest, suggesting propagation in the same direction. Perpendicular to the rift axis, the focus of the opening is clearly shifted to the northeast, relative to the topographic rift axis, in the ''Petit Rift,'' a rift-in-rift structure, containing most of the active faults and the seismicity. Vertical motions, measured by differential leveling, show the same asymmetric pattern with a bulge of the northeastern shoulder. Although the inner floor of the rift is subsiding with respect to the shoulders, all sites within the rift system show uplift at rates varying from 0 to 10 mm/yr with respect to a far-field reference outside the rift

Misure GPS sul Mt Etna: risultati preliminari

International audienc

1985–1999 gravity field variations across the Asal Rift: insights on vertical movements and mass transfer

International audienc

Contemporary, Holocene, and Quaternary deformation of the Asal Rift, Djibouti: Implications for the mechanics of slow spreading ridges

International audienceBecause the frequency and character of rifting events along mid‐ocean ridges are largely unknown, how the repetition of such events gives rise to rift structures is unexplored. The Asal rift in the Afar depression of Djibouti, Africa, provides the world's best subaerial analogue for young slow spreading mid‐ocean ridges. Seismic, geodetic, and field observations of a seismovolcanic event in 1978 at Asal yield estimates of the fault and dike locations, geometry, displacement, and volume of basalt extruded in a rifting event. A 6–9 kyr‐old lake shore highstand at Asal has been warped downward by 70 m, providing a Holocene measure of the vertical deformation across the rift. The rift topography furnishes an older datum, which we infer to be 34±6 kyr old using the Holocene deformation rate. We find that faults throughout the rift valley are active; Holocene slip rates diminish beyond 4 km from the rift axis; late Quaternary rates decrease beyond 6–7 km. The Holocene slip rates are used to estimate repeat times by taking the displacement on the faults which slipped in 1978 as characteristic; we find tectonic events on individual faults recur every 200– 300 years. Half the rift faults slipped together in the 1978 event. If this is typical, then groups of faults are activated every 100–150 years. We suggest that half the events take place in the rift axis accompanied by volcanic extrusion; the remainder occur peripheral to the neovolcanic zone and involve fault slip only, both events having a repeat time of 200–300 years. Given the 10 km width of the rift and its 16 mm yr −1 spreading rate, the mean age of the material in the rift should be ∼350 kyr, an order of magnitude older than the inferred age of the formation of the rift topography. The subsidence rate of the rift axis during the past 35 kyr is 8–9 mm yr −1 , with the rate of infilling by volcanic extrusion <1 mm yr −1 . The resulting net subsidence rate, about equal to the half‐spreading rate of the rift, could not be sustained for 300 kyr without significant infilling by lavas. Thus both observations suggest that the long‐term vertical deformation in the rift has not been steady state. Instead, we suggest that there is a rifting/filling cycle at Asal, with the most recent filling episode ending ∼35 kyr

Upper plate deformation measured by GPS in the Coquimbo Gap, Chile

International audienceSince the M=7.3 Punitaqui earthquake in 1997, the area between 30°S and 32°S (Coquimbo-Illapel section) of the Chilean subduction has been the locus of a decennial seismic swarm. A dense network of 30+ benchmarks have been installed in this area and surveyed six times with high precision GPS over the last three years. Surface deformation here is compatible with elastic loading due to partial locking on the subduction interface at depth. Here we show that in this area, only 40% to 45% of the total convergence rate between Nazca and South America plates gives way to accumulation of elastic deformation in the upper plate, the remaining 60% to 55% being dissipated by free or aseismic slip, the cumulative slip due to the seismic swarm explaining no more than 1/3 to 1/4 of it. We also find that the accumulation decreases northward, to reach almost zero around 30°S (La Serena –Tongoy). Whether this is a steady state or only a transient pattern (a steady decrease of coupling) is not clear since our measurements span only 3 years and since early measurements 10 years ago were sparse and differ only marginally from ours

Numerical modelling of quaternary deformation and post-rifting displacement in the Asal–Ghoubbet rift (Djibouti, Africa)

Over the last three decades a host of information on rifting process relating to the geological and thermal structure, long-time scale deformation (Quaternary and Holocene) and rifting cycle displacement across the Asal–Ghoubbet rift has been made available. These data are interpreted with a two-dimensional thermo-mechanical model that incorporates rheological layering of the lithosphere, dyke inflation and faulting. Active fault locations and geometry are mainly controlled by both thermal structure and magma intrusion into the crust. The distributed slip throughout the inner rift is related to the closeness of magma chamber, leading to additional stress into the upper thinned crust. Assuming a constant Arabia–Somalia motion of 11 mm/year, the variation of subsidence rate between the last 100 and 9 ka is associated with a decrease of the average injection rate from 10 to 5 mm/year. These values, about equal to the regional opening rate, suggest that both volcanism and tectonic play an equivalent role in the rifting process. Our modelled sequence of events gives one possible explanation for both vertical and horizontal displacements observed since the 1978 seismovolcanic crisis. Although part of the post-rifting deformation could be due to viscous relaxation, the high opening rate in the first years after the event and the abrupt velocity change in 1984–1986 argue for a large dyke inflation of 12 cm/year ending in 1985. The asymmetric and constant pattern of the GPS velocity since 1991 suggests that present post-rifting deformation is mainly controlled by fault creep and regional stretching. This study demonstrates the internal consistency of the data set, highlights the role of magmatism in the mechanics of crustal stretching and reveals a complex post-rifting process including magma injection, fault creep and regional stretching

Evolution spatio-temporelle de la déformation extensive en Afar (Afrique de l'Est)

La région AFar a été reconnue très tôt comme un site exceptionnel pour étudier les mécanismes intervenant dans le rifting actif, notamment à partir de la géodésie. Plus particulièrement dans la partie orientale, à Djibouti, de nombreuses campagnes ont été menées par les équipes franco-djiboutiennes dès les années 50 (IGN), puis dans les années 70, avec l'implantation d'un réseau géodésique conventionnel