Description: During the Jurassic, the Falkland Plateau was part of Gondwana and occupied a position between the African and Antarctic plates. Several contrasting models exist for the breakup of Gondwana that depend on assumptions about the currently unknown crustal structure of the Falkland Plateau. Here, we present the results of recently acquired wide-angle seismic data along the entire plateau that provide sound constraints on its role in geodynamic reconstructions. In contrast to published crustal models, the new data show that the Falkland Plateau Basin consists of up to 20 km thick oceanic crust, which is bounded to the east by a continental fragment, the Maurice Ewing Bank. In a refined geodynamic model, rifting started between the Falkland Islands and the Maurice Ewing Bank at ~178 Ma and ceased at around ~154 Ma. The plateau's exceptionally thick oceanic crust likely results from its position in an extensional back-arc-regime situated over a mantle thermal anomaly that was also responsible for the extensive onshore Karoo-Ferrar and Chon Aike volcanic provinces.

Description: The initial opening of the Africa-Antarctica Corridor, in the heart of Gondwana, is still enigmatic due to missing information on the origin of major crustal features and the exact timing of the onset of the first oceanic crust in the Jurassic. Therefore, in 2014, new ship-borne magnetic data were systematically acquired in the northern Mozambique Basin and across Beira High, which we merged with all accessible magnetic data in the Mozambique Basin. Herein, distinct magnetic lineations are observed, which allow a refined identification of a whole set of Jurassic magnetic spreading anomalies, constraining the timing of the onset of oceanization, beginning at M38n.2n (164.1 Ma). In combination with high-resolution potential field data from the conjugate Antarctic margin, well-expressed fracture zones can be traced throughout the Africa-Antarctica Corridor and allow the precise rotation of Antarctica back to Africa. The initial fit depicts striking continuations of onshore tectonic features across the plate boundaries taking onshore aeromagnetic data of both margins into account. Within a tight Gondwana fit, the Beira High can be restored along the major sinistral Namama-Orvin Shear Zone of the East African-Antarctic Orogen. The Beira High represents a continental block, which was detached from Antarctica, by 157 Ma at the latest. Simultaneously, the Antarctic plate cleared the area of the MCP. However, the crustal nature of the southern MCP remains ambiguous. The Northern Natal Valley and the Mozambique Ridge consist of thick oceanic crust, being emplaced between M26r-M18n (157.1–144 Ma) and M18n-M6n (144–131.7 Ma), respectively. About the half of this crust was won from the Antarctic plate by a series of southwards directed ridge jumps to the northern boundary of the Explora Wedge. A refined kinematic break-up model constrained by the most extensive magnetic dataset is presented describing consistently the initial opening of the Africa-Antarctica Corridor and the Somali Basin.

Description: The submarine Zambezi Channel is the deep, stable, north-south orientated, lower portion of a channel system draining the continental slope of central Mozambique; transporting material southwards into the Mozambique Channel and Basin, southwest Indian Ocean. Using recently collected Multi Beam Echo Sounder and PARASOUND data we discuss the geomorphology of the Zambezi Channel. This system is enigmatic in that the main channel is stable, with low sinuosity despite being at a low latitude where rivers seasonally deliver fine grained sediment. A further enigma is that system does not now continue upslope to the Zambezi River, the largest river in southern Africa. Instead this river flows into the northern Mozambique basin to the south-west of the small channels. The Zambezi Channel is compared to small-scale physical models in an attempt to better understand the geomorphology of the channel. The geomorphological features of the main channel show a quite remarkable resemblance to an analogue model produced within a purely erosive environment. To explain these enigmas, it is proposed that geomorphology of the main Zambezi Channel was produced by periodic, high-volume pulses of flood water, and associated sediment, from the Zambezi River, the second largest river in Africa. These events are considered to be due to minor tectonic movements along the Chobe Fault in the Kalahari that permitted the draining of several palaeo-lake systems between the Early Pleistocene through to the early Mid-Pleistocene. Such repetitive draining of palaeo-lakes would have produced flooding comparable to glacial dam bursts. Such events would deliver significantly more sediment laden flood water to the region than “normal” flow conditions. We hypothesise that these significant flood events have influenced the geomorphology of the Zambezi River to the extent that it is no longer comparable to other low-latitude systems, and exhibits characteristics akin to high-latitude systems with highly variable sediment input.

Description: The 1500 km long Falkland Plateau is the most prominent morphological structure in the southern South Atlantic Ocean, which crustal composition and development is mainly unknown. At the westernmost boundary of the plateau, the Falkland Islands' Precambrian geology provides the only insight into basement structure and age. The question of whether continental basement of a similar age and origin underlies the Falkland Plateau further east is strongly disputed. We present new high quality constraints on the crustal fabric of the plateau east of the Falkland Islands, based on wide-angle seismic and potential field data acquired in 2013. The P-wave velocity model, supported by amplitude and density modelling, shows that the Falkland Plateau Basin is filled with 8 km of sediments. Continental crust of 34 km thickness underlies the Falkland Islands. The eastern continental margin of the Falkland Islands can be classified as a volcanic rifted margin. The Falkland Plateau Basin is floored by up to 20 km thick oceanic crust. The exceptionally thick igneous crust and its high lower crustal velocities (up to 7.4 km/s) indicate the influence of a regional thermal mantle anomaly during its formation, which provided extra melt material. The wide-angle model revises published crustal models, which predicted thin oceanic or thick extended continental crust below the Falkland Plateau Basin. Our results provide a sound basis for future tectonic interpretations of the area.

Description: Some of the oldest surviving oceanic basins in the world, the Mozambique and West Somali basins, were created during the breakup of Gondwana, starting around 180 Ma. Between the two basins, relative movements of West Gondwana and East Gondwana, including Madagascar, created a shear zone, the Davie Fracture Zone (DFZ) with a topographic elevation (Davie Ridge - DR) marking its centre. The crustal composition of the DFZ and DR is a subject of speculation and debate. In this study, we present seismic refraction data across the prominent topography of the southern DR. Ray tracing of the wide-angle data as well as additional seismic amplitude modelling and 2.5D density modelling constrain its crustal structure and architecture. The data indicate that in the Mozambique Channel the DR consists of fragments of continental crust with a thickness of 10 to 12 km. An oceanic crust indenter extends northward from the Mozambique Basin into the area between the DR and the East African margin at 16.5°S. Northeast of the DR, at 41.8°W/14.5°S, the Somali Basin is probably floored by 6 km thick oceanic crust. Hence, the continental DR separates oceanic crust of the Somali and Mozambique basins. The transitional crustal area at the central Mozambican margin is underlain by high velocity lower crust (HVLC). The HVLC has velocities up to 7.3 km/s and extents along the margin, vanishing northward between 16.5° and 14.5°S. At the Madagascan side of the DR, at 16.5°S, the highly intruded stretched continental crust is 9 km thick and possibly underlain with a smaller HVLC of 2.9 km thickness and an E-W extent of 120 km. The oceanic crust at 14.5°S represents the oldest part the Somali Basin, which formed after the initial NW-SE rifting between East and West Gondwana.

Description: Acoustic and detailed swath bathymetry data revealed a systematic picture of submarine landslides on the Siberian part of Lomonosov Ridge. Whereas numerous studies on mass movement exist along the margin of the Arctic Ocean less is known from central Arctic. A regional survey comprising swath bathymetry, sediment echo sounder and multichannel seismic profiling was performed on the southeastern Lomonosov Ridge. The data provide constraints on the present-day morphology of the Siberian part of Lomonosov Ridge, between 81°–84°N and 140°–146°E. We mapped twelve crescent-shaped escarpments located on both flanks on the crest of Lomonosov Ridge. The escarpments are 2.1 to 10.2 km wide, 1.7 to 8.2 km long and 125 to 851 m high from which 58 to 207 m are occupied by crescent-shaped headscarps. Subbottom data show chaotic reflections within most of the escarpment areas. The unit is overlain by ~110–340 m of semi-coherent parallel reflections. At its bottom the chaotic reflections are limited by a partly eroded high-amplitude reflection sequence that is inclined with 〈1° basinwards. We find the escarpments to be remnants of submarine landslide events that mobilized 0.09 to 7.58 km3 of sediments between mid Pliocene and mid Miocene. The relatively small amounts of mobilized sediments seem to be typical for the Lomonosov Ridge. The epoch corresponds to the ongoing subsidence of the Lomonosov Ridge below sea level. During that time deposition and the load of sediments changed. We suggest that changes in sediment type preconditioned, and co-occurring earthquakes finally triggered the submarine landslides.

Description: During the austral summer of 1994/95, reasonable ice conditions in the Weddell Sea allowed the acquisition of new high quality seismic refraction data parallel to the Filchner-Ronne Ice Shelf (FRS), Antarctica. Although pack ice conditions resulted in some data gaps, the final velocity-depth/2D-density models cover the entire FRS in E-W direction using all available deep seismic data/picks from this remote area. The velocity-depth model shows a sedimentary basin with a thickness up to 12 km and a large velocity inversion in the lowermost sedimentary unit. The crustal thickness reaches a maximum of 40 km along the basin’s margins in the Antarctic Peninsula and East Antarctica. In the central shelf area, numerous interfering seismic phases occur from the crust-mantle boundary at decreasing distances indicating a thinning of the crust. Here, the modelled velocities and densities reveal a thickness of 20 km for the igneous crust. This corridor of overthickened oceanic or close to oceanic crust is 160 km wide. The corridor is characterized by weak, but in general continuous magnetic anomalies, which we interpret as isochrons developed during the rifting or the initial formation of oceanic crust. If the crustal composition represents an old stripe of oceanic crust, a minimum estimate for the early formation of the oceanic crust is 145/148 Ma (Late Jurassic). However, based on the velocity of rift propagation during the initial opening of the adjacent Weddell Sea the oceanic crust is likely to have formed around 160 Ma. The onset of rifting and development of a thick igneous crust can be related to stresses developed between the interior and the southwestern paleo-Pacific subduction margin of the fragmenting Gondwana supercontinent in combination with additional melt supply from a deeper mantle source that arrived and spread in the period 183-155 Ma.

Description: The Tristan da Cunha (TDC) is a volcanic island located above a prominent hotspot in the Atlantic Ocean. Many geological and geochemical evidences support a deep origin of the mantle material feeding the hotspot. However, the existence of a plume has not been confirmed as an anomalous structure in the mantle resolved by geophysical data because of lack of the observations in the area. Marine magnetotelluric and seismological observations were conducted in 2012–2013 to examine the upper mantle structure adjacent to TDC. The electrical conductivity structure of the upper mantle beneath the area was investigated in this study. Three-dimensional inversion analysis depicted a high conductive layer at ~ 120 km depth but no distinct plume-like vertical structure. The conductive layer is mostly flat independently on seafloor age and bulges upward beneath the lithospheric segment where the TDC islands are located compared to younger segment south of the TDC Fracture Zone, while the bathymetry is rather deeper than prediction for the northern segment. The apparent inconsistency between the absence of vertical structure in this study and geochemical evidences on deep origin materials suggests that either the upwelling is too small and/or weak to be resolved by the current data set or that the upwelling takes place elsewhere outside of the study area. Other observations suggest that 1) the conductivity of the upper mantle can be explained by the fact that the mantle above the high conductivity layer is depleted in volatiles as the result of partial melting beneath the spreading ridge, 2) the potential temperature of the segments north of the TDC Fracture Zone is lower than that of the southern segment at least during the past ~ 30 Myr.

Description: The active volcanic island Tristan da Cunha, located at the southwestern and youngest end of the Walvis Ridge – Tristan/Gough hotspot track, is believed to be the surface expression of a huge thermal mantle anomaly. While several criteria for the diagnosis of a classical hotspot track are met, the Tristan region also shows some peculiarities. Consequently it is vigorously debated if the active volcanism in this region is the expression of a deep mantle plume, or if it is caused by shallow plate tectonics and the interaction with the nearby Mid-Atlantic Ridge. Because of a lack of geophysical data in the study area, no model or assumption has been completely confirmed. We present the first amphibian P-wave finite-frequency travel time tomography of the Tristan da Cunha region, based on cross-correlated travel time residuals of teleseismic earthquakes recorded by 24 ocean-bottom seismometers. The data can be used to image a low velocity structure southwest of the island. The feature is cylindrical with a radius of ∼100km down to a depth of 250km. We relate this structure to the origin of Tristan da Cunha and name it the Tristan conduit. Below 250km the low velocity structure ramifies into narrow veins, each with a radius of ∼50km. Furthermore, we imaged a linkage between young seamounts southeast of Tristan da Cunha and the Tristan conduit.

Description: The crustal structure and continental margin between southern Nares Strait and northern Baffin Bay were studied based on seismic refraction and gravity data acquired in 2010. We present the resulting P wave velocity, density and geological models of the crustal structure of a profile, which extends from the Greenlandic margin of the Nares Strait into the deep basin of central northern Baffin Bay. For the first time, the crustal structure of the continent-ocean transition of the very northern part of Baffin Bay could be imaged. We divide the profile into three parts: continental, thin oceanic, and transitional crust. On top of the three-layered continental crust, a low-velocity zone characterizes the lowermost layer of the three-layered Thule Supergroup underneath Steensby Basin. The 4.3–6.3 km thick oceanic crust in the southern part of the profile can be divided into a northern and southern section, more or less separated by a fracture zone. The oceanic crust adjacent to the continent-ocean transition is composed of 3 layers and characterized by oceanic layer 3 velocities of 6.7–7.3 km/s. Toward the south only two oceanic crustal layers are necessary to model the travel time curves. Here, the lower oceanic crust has lower seismic velocities (6.4–6.8 km/s) than in the north. Rather low velocities of 7.7 km/s characterize the upper mantle underneath the oceanic crust, which we interpret as an indication for the presence of upper mantle serpentinization. In the continent-ocean transition zone, the velocities are lower than in the adjacent continental and oceanic crustal units. There are no signs for massive magmatism or the existence of a transform margin in our study area.