Seabeam and seismic reflection imaging of the tectonic regime of the Andean continental margin off Peru (4°S to 10°S)

Suite à une campagne géophysique réalisée au large de la côte du Perou (croisière Seaperc du R/V "Jean Charcot", juillet 1986), les auteurs proposent une nouvelle interprétation des structures caractérisant la pente continentale de la région étudiée. D'autre part, ils considèrent que cette marge active est une marge active en extension ou bien une marge d'effondrement qui développe un complexe d'accrétion induit par les effondrements de la partie médiane de la pente

A Natural Model of Active Transpressional Tectonics the en Échelon Structures of the Oriente Deep, Along the Northern Caribbean Transcurrent Plate Boundary (Southern Cuban Margin)

A seabearn and seismic reflection structural study of the Oriente Deep, located along the northern Caribbean transcurrent plate boundary, allows us to image in three dimensions active transpressional structures (cruise SEA-CARIB II, R/V Jean Charcot). These structures are folds and reverse faults. The folds display an en échelon arrangement and are set within three E-W trending alignments. The folds appear with an axis trending 30° to 40° to the shear direction. Their axes have undergone a rotation which gives them in plan a sigmoidal Zshape. The reverse faults formed after the folds and are located at the bases of the anticlines. The folding occurs outside the main strike-slip fault, above inactive burried faults affecting the basement of the Oriente Deep. The Oriente Deep is a exceptional natural model for the study of active transpressional deformation along a major strike-slip fault

Campagne Seamat: Etude de la collision de la ride Est-Pacifique avec le continent Nord-Americain

The data of the Seamat Cruise indicate that: a) the junction between the East Pacific Rise and the Rivera Fracture Zone is located 165 km seaward the Acapulco Trench axis at 18 degree 30'N latitude and 106 degree 15'W longitude; and b) the East Pacific Rise axial ridge connects the Rivera Transverse Ridge trough an overshot ridge. This situation makes the Rivera Fracture Zone located eastward of the junction progressively inactive and documents a westward jump of the junction

Plate boundary segmentation in the northeastern Caribbean from geodetic measurements and Neogene geological observations,

International audienceThe Caribbean–North America plate boundary in the northeastern Caribbean shows a remarkable example of along-strike transition from plate boundary–normal subduction in the Lesser Antilles, oblique subduction with no strain partitioning in Puerto Rico, and oblique subduction/collision with strain partitioning further west in Hispaniola. We show that this segmentation is well marked in the interseismic strain, as measured using space geodetic data, and in the Neogene deformation regime, as derived from geological observations. Hence, interseismic segmentation, which reproduces the geological segmentation persistent over a long time interval, is inherited from the geological history and long-term properties of the plate boundary. This result is relevant to the assessment of seismic hazard at convergent plate boundaries, where geodetic measurements often show interseismic segmentation between fully–and partially–coupled plate interface regions

Imbricated scars on the Ligurian continental slope: evidence for multiple failure events in the 1887 earthquake epicentral area

International audienc

Estimation of successive coseismic vertical offsets using coeval sedimentary events - application to the southwestern limit of the Sea of Marmara's Central Basin (North Anatolian Fault)

In the deep part of the Sea of Marmara (Turkey), the sedimentation developing upon the North Anatolian Fault is strongly influenced by the associated seismic activity, through gravity reworking (fluidized landslides) and tsunamis. Specific layers (homogenites + turbidites, HmTu), representing individual sedimentary events, have been characterized along three giant piston cores retrieved from the Çinarcik and Central (or Orta) basins. Pre-Holocene, nonmarine sediments, were analyzed, representing the last 12–17 kyr BP (before present). For a 2 kyr long interval, 11 events could be precisely correlated on both sides of the Central Basin's southwestern scarp. For each of them, based on the specific depositional process, the thickness difference between the two sites was considered as a direct estimation of the vertical component of a coeval coseismic offset. The homogenite (upper) component accounts for the major part of the thickness difference (ranging from 36 to 144 cm). These offsets were considered as likely representing dominantly vertical throws, along the transtensional southwestern boundary of the inner, pull-apart Central Basin. In terms of natural hazards, further investigations on this local behavior should rather be directed to tsunami genesis