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Evolution of magma-poor continental margins from rifting to seafloor spreading

Nature volume 413, pages 150–154 (2001)Cite this article

Abstract

The rifting of continents involves faulting (tectonism) and magmatism, which reflect the strain-rate and temperature dependent processes of solid–state deformation and decompression melting within the Earth1,2. Most models of this rifting have treated tectonism and magmatism separately, and few numerical simulations have attempted to include continental break-up and melting, let alone describe how continental rifting evolves into seafloor spreading. Models of this evolution conventionally juxtapose continental and oceanic crust. Here we present observations that support the existence of a zone of exhumed continental mantle, several tens of kilometres wide, between oceanic and continental crust on continental margins where magma-poor rifting has taken place. We present geophysical and geological observations from the west Iberia margin3,4,5,6,7, and geological mapping of margins of the former Tethys ocean now exposed in the Alps8,9,10,11,12,13. We use these complementary findings to propose a conceptual model that focuses on the final stage of continental extension and break-up, and the creation of a zone of exhumed continental mantle that evolves oceanward into seafloor spreading. We conclude that the evolving stress and thermal fields are constrained by a rising and narrowing ridge of asthenospheric mantle, and that magmatism and rates of extension systematically increase oceanward.

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Figure 1: Exploded block diagram of the continental margin beneath the SIAP off west Iberia.
Figure 2: Palinspastic reconstruction with arbitrary reference datum10 of profile Lusigal 12 (ref.16) across the southern Iberia abyssal plain (SIAP).
Figure 3: Conceptual lithosphere-scale model of development of a rifted magma-poor margin relative to a fixed right-hand edge.

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Acknowledgements

We thank the Shipboard Scientific Parties of ODP Leg 149 and Leg 173 and those aboard RRS Discovery cruise 215. We thank the UK Natural Environment Research Council, The Royal Society of London and the Swiss National Science Foundation for support.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Southampton Oceanography Centre, European Way, Southampton, SO14 3ZH, UK

    R. B. Whitmarsh & T. A. Minshull

  2. CGS-EOST, Université Louis Pasteur, 1 rue Blessig, Strasbourg, 67084, France

    G. Manatschal

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Correspondence to R. B. Whitmarsh.

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Whitmarsh, R., Manatschal, G. & Minshull, T. Evolution of magma-poor continental margins from rifting to seafloor spreading. Nature 413, 150–154 (2001). https://doi.org/10.1038/35093085

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