Thermal evolution of the lithosphere beneath fracture zones inferred from geoid anomalies

Details Thermal evolution of the lithosphere beneath fracture zones inferred from geoid anomalies Thermal evolution of the lithosphere beneath fracture zones inferred from geoid anomalies

Jun 1988

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=1988georl..15..593m&link_type=abstract

Geophysical Research Letters (ISSN 0094-8276), vol. 15, June 1988, p. 593-596. CNES-CNRS-supported research.

Physics

6

Crustal Fractures, Geoids, Lithosphere, Planetary Temperature, Seasat Satellites, Altimeters, Atlantic Ocean, Convective Flow, Pacific Ocean

Scientific paper

A global survey of Seasat derived geoid anomalies across fracture zones (FZ) has been conducted to characterize the behavior of the geoid slope with age of plate in response to lithospheric cooling. New results for the geoid slope versus age along six FZ of the Atlantic ocean (Gibbs, Pico, Doldrums, Romanche, Ascension and Agulhas-Falkland FZ) are presented. Including results of a previous study on Pacific FZ (Mendocino, Murray, Clarion and Unditsev FZ), it is confirmed that the geoid slope does not vary with age as conductive cooling models predict, and it is shown that its complex behavior is a worldwide phenomenon. Two trends are clearly shown up by the data: (1) a sharp initial decrease of the geoid slope at very young ages; and (2) a subsequent increase which typically starts at ages around 30-40 Ma and culminates at about 60 Ma. In a few cases, the rise of the geoid slope occurs later, beyond 80 Ma. According to the recent models developed by Robinson et al. (1988), these trends may result from small scale convection induced by the horizontal thermal gradients underneath the FZ, instabilities developing in a sublithospheric low viscosity layer whose properties vary with age.

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