Modes of faulting at mid-ocean ridges
Abstract
Abyssal-hill-bounding faults that pervade the oceanic crust are the most common tectonic feature on the surface of the Earth. The recognition that these faults form at plate spreading centres came with the plate tectonic revolution. Recent observations reveal a large range of fault sizes and orientations; numerical models of plate separation, dyke intrusion and faulting require at least two distinct mechanisms of fault formation at ridges to explain these observations. Plate unbending with distance from the top of an axial high reproduces the observed dip directions and offsets of faults formed at fast-spreading centres. Conversely, plate stretching, with differing amounts of constant-rate magmatic dyke intrusion, can explain the great variety of fault offset seen at slow-spreading ridges. Very-large-offset normal faults only form when about half the plate separation at a ridge is accommodated by dyke intrusion.
Additional Information
© 2005 Nature Publishing Group. Received 8 September 2004; accepted 12 January 2005. Work supported by the National Science Foundation. We thank W. Haxby for help with images and J. Karson for comments on the text.Attached Files
Supplemental Material - nature03358-s1.doc
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- CaltechAUTHORS:20150319-085050879
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2015-03-24Created from EPrint's datestamp field
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2021-11-10Created from EPrint's last_modified field