Search results for "Plate tectonics"
showing 10 items of 47 documents
Modelo de cabalgamiento profundo para el Alto Atlas (Marruecos). Implicaciones sísmicas en la zona de colisión entre Eurasia y Africa
2007
Previous crustal models of the High Atlas suppose the existence of a mid-crustal detachment where all the surface thrusts merged and below which the lower crust was continuous. However, both seismic refraction data and gravity modeling detected a jump in crustal thickness between the High Atlas and the northern plains. Here we show that this rapid and vertical jump in the depth of Moho discontinuity suggests that a thrust fault may penetrate the lower crust and offset the Moho (deep-rooted “thick skinned” model). The distribution of Neogene and Quaternary volcanisms along and at the northern part of the High Atlas lineament can be related to the beginning of a partial continental subduction…
Hotspot distribution, gravity, mantle tomography: evidence for plumes
1999
Abstract Thermal convection is the motor of Earth dynamics and therefore is the link between plate motions, hotspots, seismic velocity variations in the mantle, and anomalies of the gravity field. Small scale mantle anomalies, such as plumes, do, however, generally escape detection by tomographic methods. It is attempted to approach the problem of detection in a somewhat statistical manner. Correlations are sought between spherical harmonic expansions of the fields under study: the hotspot distribution, mantle velocity variations, gravity, heat flow. Using spherical harmonic representations of global fields implies integration and averaging over the whole globe. Thus, although relationships…
Proterozoic mobile belts compatible with the plate tectonic concept
1983
The role of geochronology in understanding continental evolution
2010
Geochronology has become one of the most essential tools in reconstructing processes of continental growth and evolution, and in situ dating of minerals has become common practice through the development of high-resolution ion microprobes and laser ablation inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry techniques. Zircon has established itself as the most robust and reliable mineral to record magmatic and metamorphic processes. The combination of mineral ages with Sm–Nd, Lu–Hf and O isotopic systematics constrains magma sources and their evolution, and a picture is emerging that supports the beginning of modern-style plate tectonics in the early Archaean. Major fields for future research in …
Late Hercynian Plate and Intraplate Processes within Europe
1987
The Hercynian orogenic belt of Europe consists of a central crystalline ridge which is accompanied on both sides by a rather unmetamorphosed foldbelt. It is speculated that the crystalline ridge represents some kind of island arc system underlain by a segment of continental crust. On both sides this island arc system was involved in subduction of oceanic crust, first of the Mideuropean Sea in the North and then of the Paleotethys in the South. When the continental areas to the north and south of the oceanic areas (North America/Northern Europe and Africa) finally got involved in the subduction processes, continent/continent collision took place on both sides of the island arc system. The tw…
Carbon concentration increases with depth of melting in Earth’s upper mantle
2021
Carbon in the upper mantle controls incipient melting of carbonated peridotite and so acts as a critical driver of plate tectonics. The carbon-rich melts that form control the rate of volatile outflux from the Earth’s interior, contributing to climate evolution over geological times. However, attempts to constrain the carbon concentrations of the mantle source beneath oceanic islands and continental rifts is complicated by pre-eruptive volatile loss from magmas. Here, we compile literature data on magmatic gases, as a surface expression of the pre-eruptive volatile loss, from 12 oceanic island and continental rift volcanoes. We find that the levels of carbon enrichment in magmatic gases cor…
Self-consistent subduction initiation induced by mantle flow
2015
Mantle circulation in planets with strongly temperature-dependent viscosity results in stagnant-lid convection. It is fundamental to understand how this stagnant-lid regime can change into a plate-like convection regime as on the present-day Earth. Here, we use 2D numerical models to study subduction initiation from an initial stagnant lid with laboratory-consistent parameters and without pre-existing weak zones or kinematic boundary conditions. Our results show that subduction can be initiated dynamically as a result of a thermal localization instability. The lithosphere may deform in a stagnant-lid mode, an un-necking mode, a symmetric-subduction mode or an asymmetric-subduction mode. The…
Plate-tectonic processes at ca. 2.0 Ga: Evidence from >600 km of plate convergence
2019
Abstract We addressed when plate-tectonic processes first started on Earth by examining the ca. 2.0 Ga Limpopo orogenic belt in southern Africa. We show through palinspastic reconstruction that the Limpopo orogen originated from >600 km of west-directed thrusting, and the thrust sheet was subsequently folded by north-south compression. The common 2.7–2.6 Ga felsic plutons in the Limpopo thrust sheet and the absence of an arc immediately predating the 2.0 Ga Limpopo thrusting require the Limpopo belt to be an intracontinental structure. The similar duration (∼40 m.y.), slip magnitude (>600 km), slip rate (>15 mm/yr), tectonic setting (intracontinental), and widespread an…