Causes and consequences of asymmetric lateral plume flow during South Atlantic rifting.

Volcanic rifted margins are typically associated with a thick magmatic layer of seaward dipping reflectors and anomalous regional uplift. This is conventionally interpreted as due to melting of an arriving mantle plume head at the onset of rifting. However, seaward dipping reflectors and uplift are sometimes asymmetrically distributed with respect to the subsequent plume track. Here we investigate if these asymmetries are induced by preexisting lateral variations in the thickness of continental lithosphere and/or lithospheric stretching rates, variations that promote lateral sublithospheric flow of plume material below only one arm of the extending rift. Using three-dimensional numerical experiments, we find that South Atlantic rifting is predicted to develop a strong southward asymmetry in its distribution of seaward dipping reflectors and associated anomalous relief with respect to the Tristan Plume that "drove" this volcanic rifted margin, and that the region where plume material drains into the rift should experience long-lived uplift during rifting-both as observed. We conclude that a mantle plume is still needed to source the anomalously hot sublithospheric material that generates a volcanic rifted margin, but lateral along-rift flow from this plume, not a broad starting plume head, is what controls when and where a volcanic rifted margin will form.

Rift migration explains continental margin asymmetry and crustal hyper-extension.

When continents break apart, continental crust and lithosphere are thinned until break-up is achieved and an oceanic basin is formed. The most remarkable and least understood structures associated with this process are up to 200 km wide areas of hyper-extended continental crust, which are partitioned between conjugate margins with pronounced asymmetry. Here we show, using high-resolution thermo-mechanical modelling, that hyper-extended crust and margin asymmetry are produced by steady state rift migration. We demonstrate that rift migration is accomplished by sequential, oceanward-younging, upper crustal faults, and is balanced through lower crustal flow. Constraining our model with a new South Atlantic plate reconstruction, we demonstrate that larger extension velocities may account for southward increasing width and asymmetry of these conjugate magma-poor margins. Our model challenges conventional ideas of rifted margin evolution, as it implies that during rift migration large amounts of material are transferred from one side of the rift zone to the other.

The role of crustal quartz in controlling Cordilleran deformation.

Large-scale deformation of continents remains poorly understood more than 40 years after the plate tectonic revolution. Rock flow strength and mass density variations both contribute to stress, so both are certain to be important, but these depend (somewhat nebulously) on rock type, temperature and whether or not unbound water is present. Hence, it is unclear precisely how Earth material properties translate to continental deformation zones ranging from tens to thousands of kilometres in width, why deforming zones are sometimes interspersed with non-deforming blocks and why large earthquakes occasionally rupture in otherwise stable continental interiors. An important clue comes from observations that mountain belts and rift zones cyclically form at the same locations despite separation across vast gulfs of time (dubbed the Wilson tectonic cycle), accompanied by inversion of extensional basins and reactivation of faults and other structures formed in previous deformation events. Here we show that the abundance of crustal quartz, the weakest mineral in continental rocks, may strongly condition continental temperature and deformation. We use EarthScope seismic receiver functions, gravity and surface heat flow measurements to estimate thickness and seismic velocity ratio, v(P)/v(S), of continental crust in the western United States. The ratio v(P)/v(S) is relatively insensitive to temperature but very sensitive to quartz abundance. Our results demonstrate a surprising correlation of low crustal v(P)/v(S) with both higher lithospheric temperature and deformation of the Cordillera, the mountainous region of the western United States. The most plausible explanation for the relationship to temperature is a robust dynamical feedback, in which ductile strain first localizes in relatively weak, quartz-rich crust, and then initiates processes that promote advective warming, hydration and further weakening. The feedback mechanism proposed here would not only explain stationarity and spatial distributions of deformation, but also lend insight into the timing and distribution of thermal uplift and observations of deep-derived fluids in springs.

Sequential faulting explains the asymmetry and extension discrepancy of conjugate margins.

During early extension, cold continental lithosphere thins and subsides, creating rift basins. If extension continues to final break-up, the split and greatly thinned plates subside deep below sea level to form a conjugate pair of rifted margins. Although basins and margins are ubiquitous structures, the deformation processes leading from moderately extended basins to highly stretched margins are unclear, as studies consistently report that crustal thinning is greater than extension caused by brittle faulting. This extension discrepancy might arise from differential stretching of brittle and ductile crustal layers, but that does not readily explain the typical asymmetric structure of conjugate margins-in cross-section, one margin displays gradual thinning accompanied by large faults, and the conjugate margin displays abrupt thinning but smaller-scale faulting. Whole-crust detachments, active from early in the rifting, could in theory create both thinning and asymmetry, but are mechanically problematical. Furthermore, the extension discrepancy occurs at both conjugate margins, leading to the apparent contradiction that both seem to be upper plates to a detachment fault. Alternative models propose that much brittle extension is undetected because of seismic imaging limitations caused either by subseismic-resolution faulting, invisible deformation along top-basement 100-km-scale detachments or the structural complexity of cross-cutting arrays of faults. Here we use depth-migrated seismic images to accurately measure fault extension and compare it with crustal thinning. The observations are used to create a balanced kinematic model of rifting that resolves the extension discrepancy by producing both fault-controlled crustal thinning which progresses from a rift basin to the asymmetric structure, and extreme thinning of conjugate rifted margins. Contrary to current wisdom, the observations support the idea that thinning is to a first degree explained by simple Andersonian faulting that is unambiguously visible in seismic data.