Geodynamic implications of intermediate-depth earthquakes and volcanism in the intraplate Atlas mountains (Morocco)

Details Geodynamic implications of intermediate-depth earthquakes and volcanism in the intraplate Atlas mountains (Morocco) Geodynamic implications of intermediate-depth earthquakes and volcanism in the intraplate Atlas mountains (Morocco)

Jul 1998

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=1998pepi..108..245r&link_type=abstract

Physics of the Earth and Planetary Interiors, Volume 108, Issue 3, p. 245-260.

Physics

11

Scientific paper

Intermediate-depth earthquakes and igneous activity are unusual in the geodynamic models of intracontinental belts. In the Atlas mountains of NW Africa, they appear to be coeval and related to geodynamic processes in this region. Driving forces acting on the Atlas area including regional boundary conditions are investigated to suggest a geodynamic event that leads to subcrustal seismic events and related magmatism styles. This geodynamics concerns a period of 45 Ma in which the Atlas system experienced Cenozoic tectonic inversion of previous Mesozoic extensional basins. Keeping in mind the role of pre-existing tectonic events a period of about 45 Ma represents only 1% of the age of the Earth. Thus 99% of pre-existing tectonics are ignored. The Cenozoic interaction with Eurasia, including Alboran rifting in the Burdigalian, provide lateral constraints on the tectonics of the Moroccan Atlas region. A realistic model for the region is that the Alboran oceanic bodies, driven by the collision with Eurasia, have been moved horizontally into the surrounding African boundaries. These tectonic processes associated with collision and induced subduction for some 25 Ma should have resulted in thickening of the Atlas lithosphere, but such thickening is not observed. It is proposed that the present crustal velocity and geoelectric structures, negative Bouguer gravity, magmatic events and evidence for rapid uplift, in addition to localized high heat flows, can be better explained in terms of a delamination event. This accounts for two distinct processes of magmatism, the absence of crustal roots and the history of sublithospheric seismicity. Such a mechanism offers perspectives for relating intermediate-depth earthquakes to volcanic activity even though their occurrence are separated by a time delay of some 0.5 Ma at least.

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