Description: The Gibraltar arc, spans a complex portion of the Africa-Eurasia plate boundary marked by slow oblique convergence and intermediate and deep focus seismicity. The seemingly contradictory observations of a young extensional marine basin surrounded by an arcuate fold-and-thrust belt, have led to competing geodynamic models (delamination and subduction). Geophysical data acquired in the past decade provide a test for these models and support a narrow east-dipping, subduction zone. Seismic refraction studies indicate oceanic crust below the western Gulf of Cadiz. Tomography of the upper mantle reveals a steep, east-dipping high P-wave velocity body, beneath Gibraltar. The anisotropic mantle fabric from SKS splitting shows arc-parallel "fast directions", consistent with toroidal flow around a narrow, westward retreating subducting slab. The accompanying WSW advance of the Rif-Betic mountain belt has constructed a thick pile of deformed sediments, an accretionary wedge, characterized by west-vergent thrust anticlines. Bathymetric swath-mapping images an asymmetric embayment at the deformation front where a 2 km high basement ridge has collided. Subduction has slowed significantly since 5 Ma, but deformation of recent sediments and abundant mud volcanoes suggest ongoing activity in the accretionary wedge. Three possible origins for this deformation are discussed; gravitational spreading, overall NW-SE convergence between Africa and Iberia and finally a WSW tectonic push from slow, but ongoing roll-back subduction. In the absence of arc volcanism and shallow dipping thrust type earthquakes, evidence in favor of present-day subduction can only be indirect and remains the object of debate. Continued activity of the subduction offers a possible explanation for great (M〉8.5) earthquakes known to affect the area, like the famous 1755 Great Lisbon earthquake. Recent GPS studies show SW motion of stations in N Morocco at velocities of 3-6 mm/yr indicating the presence of an independent block, a "Rif-Betic-Alboran" microplate, situated between Iberia and Africa

Description: Offshore Ecuador, the Carnegie Ridge is a volcanic ridge with a carbonate sediment drape. During the SALIERI Cruise, multibeam bathymetry was collected across Carnegie Ridge with the Simrad EM120 of the R/V SONNE. The most conspicuous features discovered on the Carnegie Ridge are fields of circular closed depressions widely distributed along the mid-slope of the northern and southern flanks of the ridge between 1500 and 2600 m water depth. These circular depressions are 1–4 km wide and typically 100–400 m deep. Most are flat floored and some are so densely packed that they form a honeycomb pattern. The depressions were carved into the ridge sedimentary blanket, which consists of carbonate sediment and has been dated from upper Miocene to upper Pleistocene. Several hypotheses including pockmark origin, sediment creeping, paleo-topography of the volcanic basement, effects of subbottom currents, and both marine and subaerial karstic origins are discussed. We believe that underwater dissolution process merits the most serious consideration regarding the origin of the closed depression.