Abstract
Understanding the nature and composition of the oceanic crust has been a longstanding goal of Earth scientists. Seismic refraction experiments1–3suggest a simple layered crust made of eruptive basalts underlain by a thick layer of doleritic and gabbroic intrusives and a peridotitic upper mantle. Other evidence comes from ophiolite complexes on land4, although generalizations based on ophiolites are uncertain because they may be dismembered and altered during emplacement, and it is not known whether they represent sections of 'mature' oceanic crust, or crust from very small 'aborted' oceans5, anomalous ocean structures6 or marginal basins. The walls of fracture-zone valleys expose thick sections of oceanic lithosphere which are accessible to in situ observations and sampling7,8, but this approach has been criticized because the pattern of faulting in fracture zones may disrupt the original statigraphy of the crust9, and because the crust near fracture zones is anomalously thin3, 10, 11. Here we report the direct observation and sampling of a section of crust and upper mantle exposed at the Vema fracture zone in the Atlantic, using the French submersibleNautile.
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Auzende, JM., Bideau, D., Bonatti, E. et al. Direct observation of a section through slow-spreading oceanic crust. Nature 337, 726–729 (1989). https://doi.org/10.1038/337726a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/337726a0
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