Abstract
Continental rifting is the poorly understood thermomechanical process by which continents break up and new ocean basins form. Two dominant styles of continental rifting are recognized1. Crevice style rifts are characterized by initial graben formation, local uplift of the graben shoulders, and little or no volcanism. Arch-volcanic rifts exhibit an initial doming of the crust, extensive volcanism, and late-stage graben formation. The prevailing expla-nation for the two styles is that crevice rifts form in response to regional horizontal stresses, principally derived from the inter-action of the lithospheric plates along their edges, whereas arch-volcanic rifts are thought to be the result of mantle convection currents which upwell directly beneath the rift axis2. We propose an alternative working model of continental rifting in which both styles initiate in response to regional horizontal stresses. The different surface expressions of the two styles are explained in terms of differences in the mode of failure at different kinds of pre-existing weaknesses in the continental lithosphere, rather than differences in the nature of the driving forces involved.
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Dunbar, J., Sawyer, D. Continental rifting at pre-existing lithospheric weaknesses. Nature 333, 450–452 (1988). https://doi.org/10.1038/333450a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/333450a0
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