seismicity of the galapagos 95 5 w propagating rift an array of ocean bottom seismometers was deployed for 21 days about the 95 5 w galapagos propagating rift tip to obtain seismic evidence for the propagating rift hypothesis and to investigate the dynamic effects of rift propagation seismicity was fairly constant 10 17 events per day with no indication of swarm activity hypocenters were determined for 304 earthquakes the largest of which is estimated to be mb 2 3 with a seismic moment of 2 9 1020 dyn cm the cumulative seismic moment released by all local earthquakes is estimated to be 6 6 1020 dyn cm a b value of 0 77 0 08 was estimated for the region implying a stress regime dominated by a broad tectonic stress field the distribution of earthquakes is consistent with the propagating rift hypothesis most earthquakes occurred south of the propagating rift within the de steiguer deep seismicity within the transform zone is clustered in such a way as to suggest that two or three discrete fault segments may be active at the same time the seismicity observed along the propagating rift is diffuse earthquakes were observed at the propagating rift tip but not in front of it almost all earthquakes occur south of the northern pseudofault and its extension west of the rift tip that is earthquakes occur almost exclusively in lithosphere that has been or is being overtaken by the propagating rift six composite focal mechanisms are consistent with the propagating rift hypothesis first motions from earthquakes located on the propagating rift indicate extension whereas motions associated with the failing rift area indicate compression a compressional regime is also indicated west of the transform zone twelve earthquakes from the transform zone produce a poorly constrained focal mechanism consistent with right lateral strike slip motion along a fault plane that is roughly parallel to the isochrons of the transferred lithosphere

easter microplate evolution geochemical evidence confirms that there is current active spreading on both the east and west rift zones of the easter microplate and northwards propagation of the east rift with the active tip at 25 s the east rift is influenced by lateral flow of plume derived material from a hotspot located beneath either sala y gomez or easter island spreading rate variation does not seem to be influential in controlling the composition of erupted basalts

evolution of the juan fernandez microplate during the last three million years during the spring of 1983 the r v thomas washington surveyed an area located north of the antarctic nazca pacific triple junction at 35 s magnetic and seabeam bathymetric data collected during the survey confirmed the existence of the juan fernandez microplate this paper presents an analysis of the magnetic anomaly data the western boundary of the microplate is a fast spreading center which has existed since 2 ma and where the accretion rate has been about 14 5 cm yr for the last 0 7 ma the eastern boundary of the microplate is characterized by a slow spreading center which separates the juan fernandez and nazca plates the accretion rate has been about 7 0 cm yr between 0 7 and 0 4 ma and about 1 6 cm yr for the last 0 4 ma the two spreading centers are connected in the north and south by transform faults between the juan fernandez and rapanui microplates the east pacific rise is well defined between 30 and 32 s in this region the axis displays a record accretion of about 17 2 cm yr south of the juan fernandez microplate one magnetic profile oceano 7008 indicates that the opening rate is about 12 0 cm yr on the antarctic pacific ridge the birth of the microplate is dated at about 2 ma when the western boundary started to accrete the evolution of the microplate corresponds to a transfer of accretion from the eastern boundary to the western axis this is revealed by the net decrease of the opening rate from 7 0 cm yr to 1 6 cm yr observed at the eastern ridge where a small jump occurred at 0 4 ma

roller bearing tectonic evolution of the juan fernandez microplate a combined gloria sidescan and hydrosweep multi narrow beam sonar survey shows striking evidence for fan shaped spreading systems bounding pseudofaults and compression ridges associated with 90 of clockwise rotation of the juan fernandez microplate in the past 4 myr a quantitative analysis of this evolution suggests that the microplate has rotated as a rigid roller bearing for most of its history driven at its edges by shear between the surrounding major plates the remarkable similarity between the juan fernandez and easter microplates despite their different tectonic settings suggests that this is a general model for microplate tectonics

microplate tectonics along a superfast seafloor spreading system near easter island there is a growing easter microplate between the pacific and nazca plates the eastern and western boundaries of the microplate are actively spreading and propagating north and south respectively the northern and southern boundaries are broad transform zones most of the interior of the microplate contains the sort of oblique sheared structures characteristic of zones of transferred lithosphere between propagating and failing spreading centres

fast rift propagation along the east pacific rise near easter island during a 1983 seabeam cruise we surveyed the easter nazca spreading center which forms the eastern boundary of the easter microplate we have analyzed all available bathymetry and magnetic anomaly data to determine the present fine scale tectonic configuration and recent tectonic evolution of this spreading center the narrowing of the axial brunhes anomaly is best explained by a young propagating rift growing northward at an average rate of 150 mm yr assuming an average spreading rate of 120 mm yr there are indications of a short episode of faster propagation 350 mm yr prior to 0 4 ma these are the fastest rates of rift propagation yet documented the tip of the propagating rift is at about 25 s 112 25 w 180 km south of the previously hypothesized position the recent spreading direction is n85 w a large well defined sheared zone to the west of the western pseudofault bounding the crust formed by the propagating rift suggests that the easter pacific spreading center 360 km to the west is being replaced by the fast propagator

glacial recharge and paleohydrologic flow systems in the illinois basin evidence from chemistry of ordovician carbonate galena formation waters the illinois basin provides an opportune setting for elucidating the roles of remnant evaporite brines and meteoric waters in the evolution of formation waters in an intracratonic sedimentary basin formation waters from carbonate reservoirs in the upper ordovician galena group have been analyzed geochemically to study the origin of their salinity their chemical and isotopic evolution and their relationship to paleohydrologic flow systems chloride bromide ratios and ci br na br relations indicate that initial brine salinity resulted from subaerial evaporation of seawater rather than from halite dissolution subsequent subsurface dilution of the brines by meteoric waters is disclosed by d 18 o covariance however the remnant evaporite brine has not been completely expelled from these ordovician strata galena formation waters have 87 sr 86 sr ratios that range from 0 708 17 a value nearly equal to that of coeval seawater to 0 710 43 this is the greatest range of sr isotopic ratios found in waters from any stratigraphic unit in the basin two fluid mixing events are revealed in plots of 87 sr 86 sr vs 1 sr introduction of 87 sr enriched fluids from a siliciclastic source probably overlying maquoketa shale and a later event that only affected reservoir waters in the western shelf of the basin general covariance between sr and h o isotopes suggests that the later event is related to meteoric water recharge the point of intersection of the d 18 o trend with the meteoric water line implies that this mixing event involved pleistocene glacial meltwater that recharged galena reservoirs near outcrops along the western margin of the basin ordovician galena formation waters are geochemically distinct from those in both silurian devonian and mississippian pennsylvanian strata a distinction that has evidently been maintained by the overlying maquoketa regional aquitard

evolution of abyssal lavas along propagating segments of the galapagos spreading center abstract the unusual petrological diversity of abyssal lavas erupted along some segments of the galapagos spreading center is a direct consequence of the propagation elongation of these segments into older oceanic crust with increasing distance behind propagating rift tips relatively unfractionated morb erupted close to the tips are joined first by feti basalts bimodal assemblage and then by a wide range of basaltic and siliceous lavas further behind propagating rift tips this broad range diminishes again approaching the narrow compositional range of adjacent normal ridge segments these compositional variations reflect the evolution of the subaxial magmatic system beneath the newly forming spreading center as it propagates through a pre existing plate we envisage this evolution as proceeding from small isolated ephemeral magma chambers through increasing numbers of larger increasingly interconnected chambers to the steady state buffered system of a normal ridge throughout this evolution magma supply rates gradually increase and cooling rates of crustal magma bodies decrease high degrees of crystal fractionation are favored only when a delicate balance between cooling rate and resupply rate of primitive magma is achieved at other propagating and non propagating ridge transform intersections the degree to which the balance is achieved and the length of ridge over which it evolves control the distribution of fractionated lavas these effects may be evaluated provided a number of tectonic variables including transform length spreading and propagation rates are taken into account

sea beam deep tow investigation of an active oceanic propagating rift system galapagos 95 5 w we have tested and corroborated the propagating rift hypothesis with high resolution sea beam and deep tow data collected over the galapagos 95 5 w propagating rift system the propagating rift is continuously breaking through the cocos plate at a velocity of about 50 km m y with an azimuth of about 273 away from the galapagos hotspot this process transfers cocos lithosphere to the nazca plate including the preexisting spreading center which fails as it is gradually preempted by the propagating rift the spreading center azimuth is being changed by about 8 clockwise by this rift propagation the active propagating and failing rift axes overlap by about 15 km and are joined by a broad and anomalously deep zone of nonrigid plate deformation rather than by a transform fault although rift propagation is continuous on a scale of a few kilometers 50 000 years and lithospheric transferral from one plate to the other occurs mostly continuously as the preexisting rift fails it breaks into discrete segments the geometry of seafloor fabric and tectonic elements such as active and failed rifts the v shaped pattern of pseudofaults and the oblique tectonic fabric in the sheared zone of transferred lithosphere are observed as predicted this quantitative verification provides strong support for the propagating rift hypothesis

pito and orongo fracture zones the northern and southern boundaries of the easter microplate southeast pacific abstract the easter rapanui microplate is a case example of a large dual spreading center system in a region where the fastest seafloor spreading on earth is occurring today recent theoretical models of the tectonic evolution of dual spreading center systems have explored the effects of shear and rigid rotation on the boundaries and internal structure of microplates but the models must be critically constrained by improved relative motion and structural fabric data sets during the january 1987 rapanui expedition on the n o jean charcot we conducted a sea beam magnetics gravity survey of a portion of the microplate boundaries the method that was used was to fully map selected portions of the boundaries in order to establish precise structural relationships the northern terminus of the east rift or eastern boundary of the microplate is expressed as a series of parallel nw se trending valleys including what appears to be with 5890 m depth the deepest active rift axis mapped in the pacific today pito rift the northern end of the pito rift merges with an e w to 083 narrow band of linear faults interpreted to be a transform fault between the nazca and easter rapanui plates the northern triple junction between the easter rapanui nazca and pacific plates is a rff type with the two transform faults colinear along an approximately e w direction the southwestern boundary of the easter rapanui microplate is marked by a series of en echelon offsets outlined by depressions which merge into an approximately e w zone where shear must be predominant the southern triple junction is a rrf junction with an overlapping ridge system the structural data acquired during the survey provide strong constraints for kinematic models of the microplate the structural data need to be combined with crustal age determinations in order to derive a model for the evolution of the microplate

detailed tectonics near the tip of the galapagos 95 5 w propagator how the lithosphere tears and a spreading axis develops a model for propagation of an active spreading axis into preexisting lithosphere has been developed based on intensive detailed studies using seamarc ii sea beam deep tow and alvin near the tip of the propagator growing westward at 52 km m y along the east west trending galapagos spreading axis near 95 5 w initial lithospheric rifting appears to be accommodated along reactivated roughly east west abyssal hill faults at the tectonic tip extension leads to downdropping of a keystone block which is pervasively cut by normal faults and fissures the initial volcanism initial volcanic tip occurs about 6 5 km behind the tectonic tip as basalt erupts through these fissures covering most of the keystone block the neovolcanic axial tip occurs another 4 5 km back at the western termination of a well defined axial pillow ridge along which volcanism is localized spreading along the propagator axis accelerates to the full rate 29 mm yr half rate at the full rate tip interpreted to be 10 km behind the neovolcanic axial tip or 21 km behind the tectonic tip a complex pattern of strain in the tip area results from the interaction of plate spreading transform shear stress crack propagation dynamic depression of the western end of the axial valley and the transform zone and variations in the strength thickness heterogeneity and anisotropy of the lithosphere southwesterly curvature of the neovolcanic axis near its tip is inferred to result primarily from the response of young thin weak relatively homogeneous lithosphere to counterclockwise rotation of the maximum tensional stress direction relative to the spreading direction due to the influence of shear stress from the transform zone similar stress interactions likely occur at the tectonic tip but are inferred to be accommodated in this older thick strong heterogeneous and anisotropic lithosphere by oblique slip along a set of left stepping reactivated preexisting east west abyssal hill structures although on a time scale of 106 years the overall process of propagation is mostly continuous rifting at the tectonic tip appears discontinuous at a scale of 1500 m or 30 000 years based on the east west spacing of grabens formed as rifting begins the scale of discontinuity of propagation of the neovolcanic axis is 3 5 km or 50 000 100 000 years based on the distribution of northeast trending features interpreted as beheaded western terminations of paleoneovolcanic axes the extension involved in rifting is 10 20 based on summing the horizontal normal separation of all normal faults and fissures integrated and averaged over the zone of rifting these values are approximately doubled if simple shear listric faulting is dominant rather than pure shear normal faulting

deep tow and sea beam studies of dueling propagating ridges on the east pacific rise near 20 40 s nontransform ridge axis discontinuities such as propagating rifts overlapping spreading centers oscs and saddle points occur frequently along the mid ocean ridge system we used sea beam and deep tow to study an example of a relatively large nontransform offset near 20 40 s on the east pacific rise epr the two spreading center tips are 15 km apart and separated by a diffuse shear zone a broad v shaped wake of disturbed topography and magnetics occurs on the flanks of the epr near the offset on a fine scale the offset is tectonically much more complex than either the typical osc or propagating rift structures for two reasons first it is a dueling propagator in which structures produced by successive short term episodes of northward and southward propagation have overprinted each other with migration toward the south prevailing over the long term second its offset distance is such that its tectonic behavior may be transitional from that of a propagating rift to that of an osc system the offset s rate of migration to the south has been 20 mm yr over the last 2 m y far less than total opening rate of 162 mm yr distinct propagation events may have been much more rapid however surging north and south at rates of 160 230 mm yr in the process several fossil spreading ridges 30 50 km long have been abandoned and rafted to the side we propose a fine scale tectonic evolution in which a propagating spreading center either curves inside or runs outside of a soon to be abandoned propagating rift tip we call this process self decapitation dueling propagation at 20 40 s may be caused by competing magmatic sources at shallow points along the epr one to the north near 20 s and one to the south near 21 30 s the 20 40 s dueling propagator occurs at a long wavelength low in the axial depth profile between these competing sources in general the division of spreading centers into segments separated by ridge axis discontinuities occurs at low points along the axis and may be caused by the pattern of upper mantle convection and the factors governing flow of magma along the strike of the ridge

petrologic consequences of rift propagation on oceanic spreading ridges abstract the production of anomalously differentiated lava compositions at several mid ocean spreading centers can be attributed to magmatic processes associated with propagating rifts the degree of differentiation attained by magmas beneath oceanic spreading ridges depends mainly on the balance between cooling rate and the supply rate of new magma to shallow chambers low supply rates and moderate cooling rates allow advanced degrees of closed system fractionation to occur high supply rates result in open systems in which magma compositions are buffered by frequent replenishment with new hot magma propagating rift tips are a special class of ridge transform intersection in which the balance between cooling and supply rates is conducive to the development of advanced degrees of differentiation over an expanded length of ridge this balance is affected by the spreading rate the propagation rate of the rift the length of the bounding transform and proximity to hotspots maximum compositional variability and maximum degree of differentiation occur within 50 km of propagating rift tips and subsequently diminish with increasing distance rifts that propagate through plates in directions approximating their absolute motion relative to the lower mantle are characterized by the presence of anomalously differentiated lavas over longer ridge segments than are rifts that propagate against their absolute motion geochemical anomalies may persist though changing in degree and extent for several million years on ridge segments that stop propagating the concept of magnetic telechemistry is generally supported by our study but in the vicinity of hotspots magnetic anomaly amplitude may be controlled more by bathymetric and or thickened magnetic layer effects than by geochemistry

crustal processes at spreading centers recent discoveries and research on mid ocean ridges mor s in the last four years have greatly increased our knowledge of this fundamental type of plate boundary the last iugg review of mor research was in 1975 aumento et al 1975 and its omission as a topic in 1978 may have reflected a feeling that spreading centers were reasonably well understood since that time however there has been a surfeit of important new observations and exciting research and there is now a turmoil of innovative ideas about the processes which create and leave their imprint on two thirds of the earth s crust new seismic measurements have been made and interpreted as evidence for the existence of shallow axial magma chambers amc beneath intermediate total opening rate 5 9 cm yr and fast 9 18 cm yr spreading centers fig 1 yet there is controversy as to whether they are steady state whether they persist beneath slow ridges as well in the steady state what the dimensions and shape of the chamber are its relation to oceanic crustal stratigraphy and its relation to observations in ophiolites black smoker hydrothermal vents have been discovered in the pacific spewing forth 350 c fluids blackened by polymetallic sulfide precipitates this discovery is embroiled in debate as to how long the vents last whether they occur at slow spreading rates as well whether the enormous heat flux of the vents freeze the magma chamber even at fast spreading rates their influence on geochemical balances in the ocean and the value of the sulfide deposits commercially it has been found that our initial view of mor s as two dimensional linear structures has served us well as an initial working model but must be significantly modified to account for variations in tectonic volcanic and hydrothermal activity along strike as well as for episodicity of these processes deep sea drilling project dsdp samples have raised fundamental questions about formation of the magnetic source layer hydrothermal circulation and fault mechanisms along the mor spreading centers which penetrate existing lithosphere along strike as propagating rifts have modified our views of how plate boundaries reorient themselves and how v shaped magnetic and topographic trends are formed we have also found that transform faults may modify spreading center processes for some distance away from their intersections with mor s and that rigid plate transform faults may fail to develop at fast spreading centers under certain conditions resulting in en echelon overlapping of spreading centers this review will focus on these developments and several others only example references to these topics will be given in the text and many important topics will not be discussed directly e g petrology and geochemistry mantle convection research on lithosphere older than 1 m y however i have tried to compile and have included an extensive bibliography for u s research on a broader range of mor topics for mid 1978 to mid 1982 which is the main purpose of this report pre 1978 references are occasionally included where appropriate abstracts are not included

comprehensive analysis of marine magnetic vector anomalies we present a comprehensive description of the analysis of marine magnetic vector anomalies the marine magnetic vector field can be measured with a shipboard three component magnetometer stcm the stcm has the advantage of measuring three components but it suffers from several types of noise sources because the principles of its measurement are more complex than that of a proton precession magnetometer we have estimated the quality of stcm data constructed an optimal filter and evaluated the reliability of the filtered data then we have organized an analytical procedure composed of four steps 1 the discrimination between two and three dimensional magnetic sources 2 the determination of magnetic boundaries 3 the calculation of the boundary strikes and 4 the estimation of the boundary magnetization contrasts we show examples of these procedures using the data near the east pacific rise 28 s 31 s collected during leg 5 of the gloria expedition all the results of the above processing are merged in order to illustrate the distinct pattern of the seafloor magnetization in the surveyed area

strain transfer between disconnected propagating rifts in afar we showed before that both the aden and red sea plate boundaries are currently rifting and propagating along two distinct paths into afar through the opening of a series of disconnected propagating rifts here we use new geochronological tectonic and paleomagnetic data that we acquired mostly in the southeastern part of afar to examine the geometry kinematics and time space evolution of faulting related to strain transfer processes it appears that transfer of strain is accommodated by a bookshelf faulting mechanism wherever rifts or plate boundaries happen to overlap without being connected this mechanism implies the rotation about a vertical axis of small rigid blocks along rift parallel faults that are shown to slip with a left lateral component which is as important as their normal component of slip rates of 2 3 mm yr by contrast where rifts do not overlap either a classic transform fault maskali or an oblique transfer zone mak arrasou kinematically connects them the length of the aden red sea overlap has increased in the last 0 9 myr as the aden plate boundary propagated northward into afar as a consequence the first order blocks that we identify within the overlap did not all rotate during the same time span nor by the same amounts similarly the major faults that bound them did not necessarily initiate and grow as their neighboring faults did despite these variations in strain distribution and kinematics the overlap kept accommodating a constant amount of strain 7 to 15 of the extension amount imposed by plate driving forces which remained distributed on a limited number seven or eight of major faults each one having slipped at constant rates 3 and 2 mm yr for vertical and lateral rates respectively the fault propagation rates and the block rotation rates that we either measure or deduce are so fast 30 130 mm yr and 15 38 myr respectively that they imply that strain transfer processes are transient as has been shown to be the case for the processes of tearing rift propagation and strain jumps in afar

propagating rift model for the v shaped ridges south of iceland 1 we present new marine geophysical data which constrain the seafloor spreading history of the reykjanes ridge near iceland and the origin of its flanking v shaped topographic and gravity ridges contrary to the geometry assumed in pulsing plume models the v shaped ridges are not symmetric about the reykjanes ridge axis and seafloor spreading has not been symmetric about a stable axis thus existing models must at least be modified to include an additional asymmetry producing mechanism the best understood and documented such mechanism is rift propagation one possibility is that plume pulses drive the propagators however rift propagation also produces v shaped wakes with crustal thickness variations suggesting the possibility that a pulsing iceland plume might not be necessary to explain the reykjanes v shaped ridges scarps and troughs

migrating transform zone and lithospheric transfer at the galapagos 95 5 w propagator at the 95 5 w propagator system along the cocos nazca plate boundary the spreading axis is offset left laterally about 35 km 1 m y this offset migrates westward 52 km m y relative to points along the nearly east west trending ridge axis transferring lithosphere from the cocos to the nazca plate as it does so the required 58 km m y of right lateral motion across this migrating transform is apparently not accommodated by a throughgoing north south transform fault but rather by an approximately 15 to 20 km wide zone of shear deformation dominated by eastward curving of east west structures to a northwest southeast trend this pattern of curvature the coinciding zone of high seismicity and the abundance of talus in the area suggest that shear is distributed over this entire zone the deformation is inferred to be taken up by a bookshelf mechanism whereby faults oriented at high angles to the shear couple have left lateral slip antithetic to the right lateral shear couple rotating individual blocks clockwise these are interpreted as reactivated abyssal hill bounding normal faults probably dipping 45 60 northeast southwest shortening due to the rotation appears to be accommodated by reverse slip on the faults and may account for the uplift of de steiguer ridge in the zone of transferred lithosphere these faults have apparently had a very complex history initially normal faults formed as abyssal hills were created at the spreading axis and subsequently they had left lateral strike slip motion in the transform zone and reverse motion uplifting de steiguer ridge strain analysis based on observed structural curvature suggests that shear is distributed nonuniformly and lithospheric transfer requires 0 4 m y

the geometry of propagating rifts abstract the kinematics of two different processes are investigated both of which have been described as rift propagation courtillot uses this term to describe the change from distributed to localised extension which occurs during the early development of an ocean basin the term localisation is instead used here to describe this process to distinguish it from hey s type of propagation localisation generally leads to rotation of the direction of magnetisation to hey propagation means the extension of a rift into the undeformed plate beyond a transform fault detail surveys of the galapagos rift have shown that the propagating and failing rifts are not connected by a single transform fault but by a zone which is undergoing shear the principal deformation is simple shear and the kinematics of this deformation are investigated in some detail the strike of most of the lineations observed in the area can be produced by such deformation the mode of extension on the propagating rift appears to be localised for some periods but to be distributed for others neither simple kinematic arguments nor stretching of the lithosphere with conservation of crust can account for the observed variations in water depth

comprehensive sonar imaging of the easter microplate recent gloria and seamarc ii sidescan sonar surveys have imaged virtually the whole of the easter microplate and revealed unprecedented detail and complexity in its tectonic fabric and history there is clear evidence of rapid microplate rotation of rapidly evolving plate boundaries and of complex deformation near the northern and southern microplate boundaries

significance of microbial processes in gases of the south caspian basin abstract the south caspian basin has been a major petroleum producing province for more than a century while the basin s oil has been the focus of a number of studies the region s gas has been largely understudied this study examines 31 gas samples from 14 fields with the primary purpose of determining their mode s of formation and the role that microbial activity has had in their formation and alteration the basin s natural gas accumulations display significant differences in both molecular and isotopic composition gas wetness ranges from less than 1 at absheron to greater than 12 at guneshli methane carbon isotopic composition ranges from 57 to 37 relative to the pdb standard the stable carbon isotopic composition of the wet gas c 2 components also displays a very broad range e g c 2 ranges from 37 to 20 c 3 ranges from 31 to 10 and n c 4 ranges from 30 to 11 no strong depth related trends were observed in any of the geochemical attributes the absence of a trend implies that the gases have not been generated in situ but have migrated vertically been altered or represent a mixed product mixing is also suggested by the differences in the calculated thermal maturity levels between the c 2 components and methane in some accumulations e g karabagly as much as 55 of the methane may have a biogenic origin these data further indicate that among the gas samples studied those from bakhar appear to be the most mature with thermal maturity values consistent with the condensate window in several fields including guneshli and neftchala the wet gas components display evidence for microbial alteration this is largely manifested in anomalously heavy isotopic compositions of propane n butane and n pentane

extensional transform zones and oblique spreading centers extensional transform zones etzs are plate boundary segments of order 100 km long that strike at angles between 15 and 45 to the extension direction they are characterized by neovolcanic tectonic zones comprising overlapping en echelon volcanic systems and or faults that trend 30 75 to the extension direction sometimes accompanied by a riedel shear below these surficial en echelon structures the deformation is aseismic and ductile and the plate boundary is probably continuous etzs occur in fast and slow spreading and rifting environments and may persist in a stable configuration for several million years etzs link oblique spreading segments to transform faults in the manus and probably the lau backarc basins the reykjanes peninsula and tjornes fracture zone in iceland and the mak arrasou in afar are etzs that link subaerial to submarine spreading or rifting segments the brawley and cerro prieto seismic zones appear to be etzs in the imperial and mexicali valleys that link the san andreas imperial and cerro prieto transform faults experimental and analytical models of transtensional deformation in brittle ductile systems match many of the observed characteristics of etzs and oblique spreading centers including variably sigmoidal to straight en echelon faults that are not parallel to the extension direction the contrasting fault patterns reflect the rheology of the models and lithosphere they are more sigmoidal when the strain in the lower ductile layer is more focused causing the axial faults to curve as they propagate toward parallelism with the less ductile rift margins the angle o between the faults and the extension direction decreases with the angle between the strike of the zone and the extension direction etzs occur in the range 15 45 whereas oblique spreading centers have 45 90 and transform relay zones have 0 15 oblique fast spreading segments exhibit ridge parallel faults and volcanic systems o presumably reflecting locally rotated stress fields whereas at oblique slow spreading centers o is closer to orthogonal o 90

mercury content of the springfield coal indiana and kentucky abstract with pending regulation of mercury emissions in united states power plants its control at every step of the combustion process is important an understanding of the amount of mercury in coal at the mine is the first step in this process the springfield coal middle pennsylvanian is one of the most important coal resources in the illinois basin in indiana and western kentucky hg contents range from 0 02 to 0 55 ppm the variation within small areas is comparable to the variation on a basin basis considerable variation also exists within the coal column ranging from 0 04 to 0 224 ppm at one kentucky site larger variations likely exist since that site does not represent the highest whole seam hg nor was the collection of samples done with optimization of trace element variations in mind estimates of hg capture by currently installed pollution control equipment range from 9 53 capture by cold side electrostatic precipitators esp and 47 81 hg capture for esp flue gas desulfurization fgd the high cl content of many illinois basin coals and the installation of selective catalytic reduction of no x enhances the oxidation of hg species improving the ability of esps and fgds to capture hg

speed limit for oceanic transform faults oceanic transform faults with slip rates greater than 145 km m y do not currently exist along the east pacific rise where sea floor spreading rates range from 145 to 160 km m y instead offsets of the the very fast spreading east pacific rise are accommodated by microplates propogating rifts or overlapping spreading centers this suggests that there might be a speed limit above which transform faults do not exist a physical reason for a speed limit is not known but it might be related to unstable stress fields near the rifts tips causing them to episodically propagate and prevent a transform fault from being formed the spreading rates quoted are from our new 0 0 73 ma relative motion model for the pacific and nazca plates

coalbed methane in the ruhr basin germany a renewable energy resource abstract around the globe underground hard coal mining leads to a release of methane into the atmosphere about 7 of the global annual methane emissions originate from coal mining in the year 2002 16 countries used coal gas to generate heat and electricity in many cases the exact size of coalbed methane reservoirs is not identified the possibility of a long term gas production and its profitability at single sites are unknown to clarify these points the processes of gas generation as well as the gas in place volume have to be determined both issues are tackled here for the ruhr basin within this basin coal gas samples were taken at 13 gas production sites spread over three samplings within 14 months there were virtually no changes in the concentrations of gas components at single sites within this period the isotope composition of methane 13c methane 40 0 to 57 3 vs pdb revealed that the produced methane is a mixture of gases of thermogenic and microbial origin the microbial contribution of methane seems to be more pronounced at sites of active and especially abandoned coal mining than at unmined places ethane and propane are of thermogenic origin with ethane s isotopic composition tending to heavier values richer in 13c with time this time dependent phenomenon is interpreted as being caused by desorption in addition living methanogenic archaea were detected in mine water samples from depths down to 1200 m

gloria observations of the propagating rift at 95 50w on the cocos nazca spreading center in this paper we describe a gloria long range sidescan sonar survey of the area around 95 5 w on the cocos nazca rise where a propagating rift has been predicted to occur the sonar images clearly show a wedge of new crust that has been emplaced by propagation into 1 ma old crust the new crust is up to 800 m deeper than the surrounding seafloor although the elevation difference appears to decay with time the pseudofaults which bound this new crust have been observed from the rift tip back to crustal isochron 0 65 ma near the rift tip they consist of scarps several hundred meters high with narrow shallow valleys at their feet the sheared zone between the southern pseudofault and the trace of the failed rift to the south is characterized by abnormally shallow seafloor and nnw sse trending lineaments these may have been produced by the rotation of tectonic fabric formed at the dying rift perhaps accompanied by other deformation the youngest tectonic and volcanic lineaments on both spreading segments strike 273 but on the dying rift short spreading segments are offset en echelon so that the regional trend of the rise axis is 265 older lineaments throughout the area strike 265 the propagating rift is thus replacing an oblique rise axis by one which is orthogonal to the spreading direction and it is suggested that this is occurring in response to a recent change in spreading direction from 355 to 003 variations in the strikes of the pseudofaults indicate that the propagation direction has varied but that the rift has propagated most rapidly when following the 273 direction which we take to be normal to the new spreading direction

tectonic volcanic segmentation and controls on hydrothermal venting along earth s fastest seafloor spreading system epr 27 32 s 1 we have collected 12 khz seabeam bathymetry and 120 khz dsl 120 side scan sonar and bathymetry data to determine the tectonic and volcanic segmentation along the fastest spreading 150 km myr part of the global mid ocean ridge system the southern east pacific rise between the easter and juan fernandez microplates this area is presently reorganizing by large scale dueling rift propagation and possible protomicroplate tectonics fracture patterns observed in the side scan data define structural segmentation scales along these ridge segments these sometimes but not always correlate with linear volcanic systems defining segmentation in the seabeam data some of the subsegments behave cohesively with in phase tectonic activity while fundamental discontinuities occur between other subsegments we also collected hydrothermal plume data using sensors mounted on the dsl 120 instrument package as well as ctdo tow yos to determine detailed structural and volcanic controls on the hydrothermal vent pattern observed along 600 km of the pacific nazca axis here we report the first rigorous correlation between coregistered hydrothermal plume and high resolution marine geophysical data on similar scales and over multisegment distances major plume concentrations were usually found where axial inflation was relatively high and fracture density was relatively low these correlations suggest that hydrothermal venting is most active where the apparent magmatic budget is greatest resulting in recent eruptions that have paved over the neovolcanic zone areas of voluminous acoustically dark young lava flows produced from recent fissure eruptions correlate with many of the major hydrothermal vent areas increased crustal permeability as gauged by increased fracture density does not enhance hydrothermal venting in this area axial summit troughs and graben are rare probably because of frequent volcanic resurfacing in this superfast spreading environment and are not good predictors of hydrothermal activity here many of the hydrothermal areas are found in inflated areas near the ends of segments suggesting that abundant magma is being supplied to these areas

new observations on mid plate volcanism and the tectonic history of the pacific plate tahiti to easter microplate abstract we describe the geology and tectonics of a continuous swathe of seafloor between tahiti and the western edge of the easter microplate imaged by gloria and sea beam on two separate cruise transits in 1987 and 1988 the data reveal that mid plate volcanism is common in this region even on deep seafloor hundreds of kilometres from major lines of seamounts and islands this supports the idea of a thin weak lithosphere over the pacific superswell and the idea that the tops of major mantle plumes may spread out over diameters of the order of 1000 km the mid plate volcanism occurs in two distinct forms over most of our traverse it appears as fields of relatively young and acoustically strongly backscattering lava flows often accompanied by groups of numerous small circular volcanoes east of 122 w about chron 5a however we observed a distinct form major sharp crested constructional volcanic ridges many tens of kilometres long individually trending ene but lying en echelon along an e w regional trend these ridges appear morphologically identical to the cross grain ridges seen elsewhere in the pacific we attribute their formation to magma supplied from the regionally hot mantle leaking along tectonic lines of weakness however although these ridges are parallel to fracture zone trends seen farther west they are morphologically very different from any known fracture zone moreover individual ridges are somewhat oblique to the tectonic spreading fabric around them and so do not seem to follow actual fracture zone traces the whole line of en echelon ridges lies along part of the predicted trace of fracture zone 2 of okal and cazenave 15 and is probably its morphological expression however nowhere did we see a convincing conventional fracture zone trace in or following the predicted position or orientation we suggest instead that magma from an independent source has used lines of weakness along minor fracture zones to produce these en echelon features the austral fracture zone is the only major fracture zone crossed in our transit and here is characterised by four fossil transform strands its marked position on the aapg and gebco maps is found to be in error finally we found that the expected change from nnw to nne trending spreading fabric at chron 6c did not occur in a clear cut way as predicted by earlier tectonic histories of the pacific instead the post chron 6c fabric oscillates in a confused way between nne and nnw suggesting to us that this area has been characterised by an unstable plate boundary probably associated with a succession of propagating rifts or microplates from chron 6c to the present

the east ridge system 28 5 32 s east pacific rise implications for overlapping spreading center development abstract we report here on geophysical data from the east ridge and surrounding areas of the large offset overlapping spreading centers oscs that accommodate pacific nazca opening between 28 5 and 32 s the east ridge overlaps and is offset from the west ridge system by 120 km forming the largest known pair of oscs in this area spreading rates reach the fastest currently active on earth of 149 mm yr although the east ridge is composed of 4 morphologically defined segments separated by 3 small oscs other geophysical characteristics imply 1 upwelling segment all the active ridge segments in this area including the propagating tips of the east and west ridges form relative topographic highs with respect to the flanking sea floor however identified abandoned ridge tips form deeps we interpret these data in terms of a model in which the propagating segment represents an overshoot of a surficial rupture of the brittle lithospheric layer only partially coupled to the diverging flow of a more broadly distributed ductile deformation zone ddz surrounding the steady state ridges and crossing the offset between the oscs the topographic high of the propagating segment may be maintained primarily by along axis melt migration from the stable spreading segments rather than by direct upwelling from beneath the ridge the large overlapping ridges are inherently unstable and continued extension causes the overlapping axes to become offset from the stably spreading segments cut off from the supply of melt and replaced by a new set the failed rift tips for a period of time overlie the broad ddz and preferentially undergo continued extension and subsidence the ddz surrounding the ridge axes may be very broad in this area because of the very fast spreading rate creating a very thin lithosphere susceptible to perturbation by relatively small mantle heterogeneities advected near the ridge axis leading to the formation of the smaller oscs observed

a history of the easter microplate 5 25 ma to present gloria and other geophysical data are used to interpret the morphology and tectonic pattern of the easter microplate we model magnetic anomaly data and calculate spreading rates for use in euler pole calculations we calculate three plate closure and best fit poles for nazca pacific nazca easter and pacific easter plate motions and compare the results with earthquake focal mechanisms and seismicity we use the three plate closure poles to rotate digital gloria and magnetic isochron data of the microplate and surrounding major plates back in time since the microplate s east rift first started to propagate northward at around 5 25 ma the microplate has evolved in two stages the first is from 5 25 ma to around 2 5 ma and involved continuous northward propagation of the east rift while the west rift became segmented along new transform faults as it adjusted to keep the overall nazca pacific velocities constant the transpressive northern boundary migrated with the east rift tip while the transtensional southern boundary remained more or less still at some time after 2 5 ma the east rift ceased northward propagation and the southwest rift began to open up along the transtensional pacific easter transform a convergent northern boundary formed involving southward thrusting of the nazca plate over the microplate no further nazca plate lithosphere was transferred from north of the microplate to the microplate interior and the pito deep region opened by pervasively rifting apart preexisting nazca plate lithosphere

mechanisms of coal metamorphism case studies from paleozoic coalfields controls on coal metamorphism can be complex in this paper we examine four paleozoic coalfields the western kentucky portion of the illinois basin the pennsylvania anthracite fields the south wales coalfield and the bowen basin an increase in temperature with depth of burial is certainly a factor in coal metamorphism in many coalfields however including the coalfields reviewed here it has become apparent that such a simple mechanism does not explain the coal rank patterns observed the flow of hydrothermal fluids through the coals has been proposed as a cause of coal metamorphism evidence includes inverted rank gradients elevated cfl as an indicator of brine fluids isotopic evidence for hydrothermal fluids and vein and cleat mineral assemblages in any case multiple hypotheses must often be evaluated in the examination of any coalfield since the simple paradigm of coal rank increases with a simple increase in temperature with increasing depth does not fit the evidence observed in many cases

characterization of the origin of coalbed gases in southeastern illinois basin by compound specific carbon and hydrogen stable isotope ratios abstract coalbed gases and waters from exploratory and production gas wells in the southeastern illinois basin were sampled to assess geochemically the origin of coalbed gases with an emphasis on the springfield and seelyville coal members that are commercially targeted for coalbed methane production in indiana on line analyses of hydrocarbon gases methane to butanes c 1 c 2 c 3 n c 4 i c 4 and co 2 yielded gas concentrations plus d and 13 c values the low thermal maturity of indiana coals with vitrinite reflectance r 0 0 6 is in agreement with an overwhelmingly biogenic isotopic signature of coalbed gases containing 96 methane generated via bacterial co 2 reduction in contrast thermogenic gas was generated in the stratigraphically equivalent coal beds in western kentucky s rough creek graben zone where higher maturities of up to r 0 0 8 were reached owing to tectonic and hydrothermal activity no secondary biogenic methane was observed in more mature western kentucky coal beds where greater burial depth limits the recharge of meteoric water biogenic and thermogenic coalbed gases represent two end members that are compositionally and isotopically distinct microbial biodegradation of thermogenic c 2 hydrocarbon gases in indiana coal beds preferentially targets c 3 and introduces isotope fractionation whereby remaining c 3 is enriched in deuterium and 13 c

morphotectonic fabric of the orozco transform fault results from a sea beam investigation we have used data collected with the sea beam system to produce a detailed regional bathymetric map of the medium to fast slipping 90 mm yr orozco transform fault the morphotectonic fabric of the 90 50 km transform domain is spatially heterogeneous and is composed of relatively shallow areas 3200 m the plate boundary geometry is clearly identified morphologically and is characterized by a series of linked basins and troughs that approximate a zed pattern in plan view east west trending basins define the northern and southern boundaries of the transform domain and these troughs are thought to mark the location of strike slip tectonism a central north south trending ridge with an axial valley called here the mid orozco spreading center is thought to represent a short 30 km ridge segment that links two transform faults morphotectonic relationships developed along the southeastern flank of the survey area suggest that this plate boundary geometry has recently become unstable and is presently undergoing a transformation as the tip of the east pacific rise axis propagates northward across the transform domain bypassing the mid orozco spreading center if the southern ridge axis continues to propagate northward it will link with the aseismic extension of the northern strike slip strand and the present day plate boundary will evolve into a simple ridge transform ridge r t r geometry with an offset of approximately 70 km

plate boundary reorganization at a large offset rapidly propagating rift the existence of rapidly spinning microplates along the southern east pacific rise has been documented by geophysical swath mapping surveys1 6 and their evolution has been successfully described by an edge driven kinematic model7 but the mechanism by which such microplates originate remains unknown proposed mechanisms1 10 have generally involved rift propagation11 possibly driven by hotspots or changes in direction of sea floor spreading here we present geophysical data collected over the earth s fastest spreading centre the pacific nazca ridge between the easter and juan fernandez microplates fig 1 which reveal a large offset propagating rift presently reorganizing the plate boundary geometry a recent episode of rapid duelling propagation of the historically failing spreading centre in this system has created a 120 120 km overlap zone between dual active spreading centres which may be the initial stage of formation of a new microplate

possible perturbations to hotspot traces and implications for the origin and structure of the line islands perturbations to hotspot signals recorded on the surface of the earth will produce hotspot traces with characteristics more complex than those of simple time progressive volcanic chains some of these perturbations are a consequence of normal plate tectonics some are observed interactions of hotspot magmatism with lithospheric structure and processes and others are hypothetical the line islands volcanic chain has a complex structure and some characteristics that cannot be reconciled with those expected of a simple time progressive hotspot trace two models for the development of the line islands are presented model 1 assumes that the line islands were formed between 130 and 67 ma and model 2 assumes an age span of 90 to about 15 ma and incorporates the tuamotu islands as an extension of the line islands in model 1 most of the complex structure and subsidence of the chain can be explained in terms of perturbations to the hotspot signal model 2 gives a good geometric fit to the volcanic chain but fails to explain the anomalous subsidence of the line islands

quaternary eruptive history of nevado del ruiz colombia abstract nevado del ruiz has a 1 8 m y long eruptive record that includes alternate construction and destruction of three edifices during three main eruptive periods termed ancestral ruiz older ruiz and ruiz nevado del ruiz is located on a complex intersection of four groups of faults the most significant being the n20 e palestina strike slip fault and the n50 w villamaria termales normal fault ancestral ruiz was a broad stratovolcano built by two eruptive stages of lava flows starting about 1 8 ma ago and ending 1 0 ma ago a partial collapse and formation of a caldera are thought to have occurred between 1 0 and 0 8 ma ago older ruiz was a stratovolcano constructed by lava flows in three stages starting about 0 8 ma ago and ending about 0 2 ma ago extensive and voluminous welded and nonwelded pyroclastic flow deposits that partly fill preexisting valleys record the formation of a young summit caldera between 0 2 and 0 15 ma ago present ruiz is formed by a cluster of composite lava domes that probably filled the summit caldera of older ruiz present ruiz eruptive activity is mostly explosive but also includes dome growth and parasitic dome activity of la olleta and alto la piramide twelve eruptive stages occurred during the last 11 000 years accompanied by rockslide debris avalanches pyroclastic flows or surges and their subsequent interactions with the ice cap as well as by glacial erosion and mass wasting diverse processes within these twelve stages have led to a partial destruction of the summit domes this long and complex pleistocene and holocene eruptive sequence helps to put the november 13 1985 eruption into a broader perspective

the juan fernandez microplate north of the pacific nazca antarctic plate junction at 35 s abstract results of the r v thomas washington pascua 3 expedition provide evidence for the existence of the juan fernandez microplate just north of the junction between the east pacific rise epr and the chile fracture zone prior to pascua 3 the microplate in the region had been hypothesized from the pattern of seismicity the eastern and western boundaries of the juan fernandez microplate are well defined and represent north south trending spreading centers characterized by very slow and very fast rates of accretion respectively in agreement with the rates the eastern boundary is represented by a rift valley and the western boundary by an epr type axial ridge the northern boundary of the juan fernandez microplate is a 100 trending wide fracture zone complex which may have resulted from northward transform fault migration the fracture zone fails to meet the zone of accretion at the pacific nazca juan fernandez triple junction in this area the zone of accretion displays a double ridge with a large overlap the southern boundary of the juan fernandez microplate is still poorly constrained the plate geometry derived from seabeam differs from that derived by anderson fontana et al 1986 14 from a plate motion inversion scheme using primarily earthquake first motion solutions together with limited bathymetric and magnetic data

recent dueling propagation history at the fastest spreading center the east pacific rise 26 32 s the east pacific rise epr 26 32 s located between the easter microplate and the juan fernandez microplate has the world s fastest spreading rate and tectonics characterized by dueling ridge propagation a glori b and sea beam 2000 side scan bathymetry survey together with other geophysical data collection was conducted aboard the r v melville covering an approximately 5 by 5 area centered on this part of epr the side scan and bathymetric data reveal the complete geometry of the propagator system the western and eastern ridges both curve inwardly and are overlapped 120 km with an offset to overlap ratio of nearly one several abandoned ridges and rifts are clearly mapped on the east flank and a few failed rifts are also mapped near the western ridge tip a fracture zone discovered south of easter island indicates a stage of stable ridge transform intersection in the past an inversion with magnetic anomaly vectors was carried out for the area a resultant magnetic boundary strike map was interpreted with the downward component profiles to construct a magnetic isochron map the spreading and propagation rates were estimated from the magnetic isochrons the net southward propagation rate of the western ridge is 120 km m y for the last 1 9 m y the spreading rate of the eastern ridge has been 150 km m y and its current propagation rate is estimated as 500 km m y toward the north intense asymmetric spreading as high as 30 is observed at both ridges together with the side scan and bathymetric data the magnetic lineations provide significant constraints on the evolution of the propagator system and a propagation model with cyclic rift failure was applied to model the tectonic evolution during the last 2 m y a normal ridge transform intersection evolved into a nontransform overlapping offset 1 95 ma and the eastern and the western ridges have propagated alternately the dueling propagation history is characterized by the dominant southward propagation of the western ridge and the transitory propagation events of the eastern ridge with a variety of overlap lengths widths and ridge curvatures in the transition zone

tectonics of the easter plate abstract we present a new model for the easter plate in which rift propagation has resulted in the formation of a rigid plate between the propagating and dying ridges we use the distribution of earthquakes eleven new focal mechanisms and existing bathymetric and magnetic data to describe the tectonics of this area both the easter nazca and easter pacific euler poles are sufficiently close to the easter plate to cause rapid changes in rates and directions of motion along the boundaries the east and west boundaries are propagating and dying ridges the southwest boundary is a slow spreading ridge and the northern boundary is a complex zone of convergent and transform motion the easter plate may reflect the tectonics of rift propagation on a large scale where rigid plate tectonics requires boundary reorientation we use simple schematic models to illustrate the general features and processes which occur at plates resulting from large scale rift propagation

tectonic evolution of the easter microplate the plate tectonic history of the easter microplate has been reconstructed by closing the microplate in a series of steps using the pacific nazca magnetic anomalies north and south of the microplate and the nuvel 1 global plate motion model after each step the easter microplate was rotated rigidly to match the nazca and pacific anomalies gaps and overlaps formed by this kinematic treatment indicate compressional and tensional deformation respectively and show that rigid plate motions are insufficient to explain the complete tectonic evolution analysis of the magnetic anomaly data was guided by contoured seamarc ii sea beam and 3 5 khz bathymetry data and a lineament map derived from seamarc ii side scan and sea beam bathymetry data the patterns of lineaments and bathymetric structures suggest that rotational deformation of the nazca plate is the general mechanism that accommodates the space problems arising from transfer of the nazca plate to the microplate and rapid rotation of the microplate against the nazca plate similar but smaller amounts of deformation are predicted along the southern boundary of the microplate prior to the origin of the microplate the east pacific rise epr was offset in at least two places according to the older magnetic anomalies yet there is no evidence of linear fracture zones within the sparse data set except for occasional small consistent changes in regional depth across these age offsets the magnetic bathymetry and satellite altimetry data indicate that the microplate initially formed at or perhaps southeast of easter island near a left lateral offset of the epr sometime between anomaly 3 and 3 the east rift started propagating north from the present location of easter island at 4 5 ma which is 1 5 m y earlier than previously proposed however the magnetic data that support this interpretation are sparse and complicated by recent volcanic flows and associated rough bathymetry west of easter island the geometry of the microplate changes very rapidly during its evolution at the initial stages of development the microplate resembles a large propagating rift system suggesting that deformation may have been occurring throughout most of its interior up to about 2 47 ma at this time the length to width of overlap ratio of the two rifts reaches a value of 3 the northward propagation slows down the curved opening of the southwest rift becomes well established and rigid rotation of the previously deformed transferred lithosphere probably starts to predominate at this time the offset distance between the two overlapped rifts starts to increase some time after 2 47 ma and before 1 ma the east rift starts propagating northwestward probably in response to the microplate rotation and continues up until present also during this time period the east rift breaks into a series of northward propagating rifts each propagating into the microplate interior thereby transferring lithosphere from the microplate to the nazca plate and reducing the total growth rate of the microplate

seamarc ii survey of a propagating limb of a large nontransform offset near 29 s along the fastest spreading east pacific rise segment seamarc ii side scan and bathymetric data combined with magnetic anomaly and sea beam bathymetric data define a large 90 120 km nontransform offset of the east pacific rise epr between the easter and juan fernandez microplates near 29 s where one or more transforms had been suggested by the seismicity pattern on the basis of morphology structural and tectonic features three major regions are delineated an eastern spreading axis a western spreading axis and a central transfer zone these two spreading axes overlap by at least 35 km and possibly as much as 100 km the eastern axis is characterized by an axial ridge that narrows and deepens toward the tip 28 38 s 112 08 w approaching the tip the spreading axis azimuth changes from approximately n5 e to n25 w and axial magnetic anomaly values increase to over 700 nt 37 km south of the rift tip a pair of deep 600 m bathymetric troughs on either side of the ridge axis trending n11 w and n44 w converge on the ridge tip and define the outermost boundaries of ridge parallel structures these structures are interpreted as pseudofaults resulting from northward rift propagation the western spreading axis is approximately 2400 m deep and corresponds to a young volcanic area the central lithospheric transfer zone west of the inner pseudofault of the eastern spreading axis is characterized by oblique abyssal hill and magnetic fabric interpreted to result from shear between overlapping spreading centers and a dispersed pattern of teleseismic earthquake epicenters the eastern spreading axis is propagating rapidly northward at up to 265 km m y based on a 158 km m y spreading rate and the 33 angle between the pseudofaults however complex patterns of seafloor fabric which differ from that predicted by the simple propagating rift model suggest that multiple propagation events may have occurred furthermore southward propagation of the western limb may be dominant in the long term the absence of transform faults along this superfast spreading epr segment documents that transforms do not presently exist at such superfast spreading rates

pliocene change in pacific plate motion the absolute motion of the pacific plate has been nearly constant during the past 15 myr but epp1 recognized that some change took place between 15 myr and the present and tentatively chose 1 myr for the time of the change cox and engebretson2 found a change in pacific absolute motion based on hotspot tracks and a change in pacific antarctic relative motion the pliocene deformation in california and the juan de fuca rotations led them to postulate a 5 myr age for the change the manner and timing of the change are explored more thoroughly here and we put the time for the change in motion of the pacific plate at between 5 and 3 2 myr basing the younger limit on the correlation of computed hotspot tracks with pacific and nazca hotspot traces the change may explain several observations on the neighbouring continental and oceanic plate boundaries including direct adjustments at the pacific spreading ridges a likely mechanism for the change is a large clockwise torque caused by acceleration of the sinking slab beneath the kurile trench where a fossil spreading ridge is inferred to have been subducted

tectonics and evolution of the juan fernandez microplate at the pacific nazca antarctic triple junction in this study magnetic and bathymetric data from an r v endeavor survey are combined with earthquake mechanism studies to produce a tectonic model for the juan fernandez microplate at the pacific nazca antarctic triple junction magnetic lineations along the east ridge of the microplate fan to the south indicating that the nazca juan fernandez pole is near the northern end of this feature relative motions of the juan fernandez pacific nazca antarctic four plate system are determined using relative plate motion inversions the resulting tectonic model predicts that the northern boundary of the juan fernandez microplate is a zone of compression and that the west ridge and southwestern boundary are spreading obliquely the southeastern boundary is predicted to be obliquely divergent but present data fail to constrain its geometry we also present a schematic evolutionary model which relates the formation of the juan fernandez microplate to differential spreading rates at the triple junction and discuss related complexities the future evolution of the fourplate system depends on whether one or both ridges remain active

three dimensional magnetic modeling of a propagating rift galapagos 95 30 w a combined deep tow and seabeam investigation at 95 30 w on the cocos nazca spreading center has revealed the crustal contact between the propagating rift and the dying rift systems the observed 27 km offset between the axes creates an ideal situation for the application of magnetic methods the normally magnetized crust of the propagating rift tip penetrates into older crust which was created when the earth s main field was reversed as the v shaped structure of the rift clearly violates the conventional two dimensional assumptions a full three dimensional analysis is required in addition the distorting influence of over 1000 m bathymetric relief must be removed from the observed field inversions have been performed on the gridded representations of the observed magnetic field and bathymetry working in the fourier domain the result is a gridded rock magnetization distribution the inversion of the surface data covers a large area 6000 km2 and demonstrates close agreement with magnetization amplitudes of rock samples at existing dredge sites in general the propagating rift process appears to be much more orderly than the dying rift process the magnetic polarity transition widths are narrower and the boundaries have fewer undulations than the dying rift which appears to be quite episodic in behavior the average propagation rate is 52 mm yr compared to the average spreading half rate of 29 mm yr the locations of the boundaries suggest that the acceleration to the normal spreading rate on the propagating rift requires about 250 000 years the inversion of the deep tow data near the seafloor provides a high resolution definition of the location of the tip of the propagating rift at 2 38 1 n 95 30 0 w

isotopic and molecular composition of coal bed gas in the amasra region zonguldak basin western black sea previous studies on the coal bed methane potential of the zonguldak basin have indicated that the gases are thermogenic and sourced by the coal bearing carboniferous units in this earlier work the origin of coal bed gas was only defined according to the molecular composition of gases and to organic geochemical properties of the respective source rocks since data on isotopic composition of gases were not available furthermore in the western black sea region there also exist other source rocks which may have contributed to the coal bed gas accumulations the aim of this study is to determine the origin of coal bed gas and to try a gas source rock correlation for this purpose the molecular and isotopic compositions of 13 headspace gases from coals and adjacent sediments of two wells in the amasra region have been analyzed total organic carbon toc measurements and rock eval pyrolysis were performed in order to characterize the respective source rocks coals and sediments are bearing humic type organic matter which have hydrogen indices hi of up to 300 mghc gtoc indicating a certain content of liptinitic material the stable carbon isotope ratios 13 c of the kerogen vary from 23 1 to 27 7 o air free calculated gases contain hydrocarbons up to c 5 carbon dioxide 98 the stable carbon isotope ratios of methane ethane and propane are defined as 13 c 1 51 1 to 48 3 13 c 2 37 9 to 25 3 13 c 3 26 0 to 19 2 respectively the d 1 values of methane range from 190 to 178 according to its isotopic composition methane is a mixture partly generated bacterially partly thermogenic molecular and isotopic composition of the gases and organic geochemical properties of possible source rocks indicate that the thermogenic gas generation took place in coals and organic rich shales of the westphalian a kozlu formation the bacterial input can be related to a primary bacterial methane generation during carboniferous and or to a recent secondary bacterial methane generation however some peculiarities of respective isotope values of headspace gases can also be related to the desorption process which took place by sampling

microplate and shear zone models for oceanic spreading center reorganizations the reorganization of oceanic spreading centers is often accomplished through the process of rift propagation we first examine general rift propagation geometries for the simple two plate case in which the propagating rift instantaneously reaches full spreading rate while the other rift dies instantaneously such that the propagating and dying rifts never overlap a velocity space representation provides a framework for describing the geometry of rift propagation and its various tectonic elements and shows how both the failed rift and isochrons between the two rifts are reoriented as a consequence of purely rigid plate tectonics we then discuss the more complex geometries that result when both growing and dying rifts spread simultaneously during propagation such that a technically independent overlap region like the easter or juan fernandez plates along the east pacific rise is produced we examine the effect of the propagation rate and rise time of spreading on the evolution of overlap regions between dual oceanic spreading centers the tectonics and evolution of such regions can be modeled by assuming that they act either as rigid microplates or as zones of distributed shear rigid plate models are suggested by the reasonable success of euler vectors derived from inversions of plate motion data spreading rates transform azimuths and slip vectors both in describing available data and in predicting subsequently acquired data on the other hand recent structural data showing fabric oblique to the surrounding spreading centers might suggest shearing rather than rigid behavior in the interior of the easter microplate we use schematic evolutionary simulations for an easter style geometry to examine whether plate motion data and orientations of preexisting and present structures can be used to discriminate between rigid and shear models in a microplate model rigid plate tectonics requires that relative motion occur only along the boundaries of the overlap region while structures within the overlap zone rotate rigidly in contrast in a shear model relative motions at the boundaries differ from those predicted by rigid plate tectonics and the angular relationships of structures within the overlap region are altered by internal deformation thus inversion of relative motion data yields different results for rigid and shear behavior similarly under favorable circumstances structural trends could be diagnostic of the different cases we find that much of the easter structural data suggestive of shearing are also consistent with rigid plate tectonics we conclude that microplate models offer useful testable hypotheses for describing overlap systems and that shearing need be invoked only to explain features not describable by rigid plate tectonics furthermore the approaches used here to study current overlap regions should be useful in the analysis of similar regions formed during past oceanic plate boundary reorganizations

evidence from earthquakes for bookshelf faulting at large non transform ridge offsets migrating non transform offsets which occur along mid ocean ridges when a propagating segment gradually elongates and takes over spreading from a neighbouring doomed rift segment1 3 represent a significant modification of the plate tectonic paradigm4 the migrating offset zone between the two spreading segments is clearly a locus of significant deformation but the mechanism of this deformation has been controversial here we use the source parameters and locations of earthquakes at such offsets to discriminate between previously proposed models2 4 7 earthquakes at large non transform offsets at medium and fast spreading rates show strike slip mechanisms with nodal planes rotated relative to the expected transform fault orientation one set of nodal planes presumably corresponding to the fault planes is parallel to curved sea floor lineaments which show increased rotation as a function of position in the deforming zone a bookshelf faulting model in which initially ridge parallel faults are rotated by simple shear is consistent with the observed lineament orientations focal mechanisms and earthquake distributions

volumetrically significant recharge of pleistocene glacial meltwaters into epicratonic basins constraints imposed by solute mass balances melting of kilometer thick continental ice sheets during pleistocene glaciation profoundly altered regional scale groundwater flow in the low lying stable interior of the north american craton in this paper we show that large volumes of glacial meltwater penetrated to great depths in underlying sedimentary basins through regionally extensive silurian devonian carbonate aquifers disrupting relatively stagnant saline fluids and creating a strong disequilibrium pattern in fluid salinity these dilute isotopically light meteoric waters migrated into overlying fractured organic rich upper devonian shales and significantly enhanced microbial methanogenesis generating a unique class of natural gas deposits along the shallow basin margins new data on formation water chemistry of upper devonian antrim shale gas wells along the northern and western margins of the michigan basin were integrated with previously published shale data and brines in subjacent silurian devonian carbonates this comprehensive database provides important constraints on fluid and solute transport and makes a compelling case for the reorganization of drinking water resources and salinity structures along the shallow basin margins by pleistocene glaciation na ca cl br relations and mass balance calculations were used to determine the relative volume of meteoric waters and sources of salinity in antrim shale fluids the majority of shale formation waters contain greater than 50 meteoric water with most containing over 80 meteoric water up to 300 m beneath the shale subcrop despite the presence of a strong salinity gradient meteoric water recharge dissolved variable amounts of halite from evaporite bearing silurian devonian carbonates along the flow path into the shale and displaced highly saline nacacl remnant marine brines the majority of antrim shale fluids owe greater than 60 of their salinity to halite dissolution while less than 40 of cl is from mixing with brines in silurian devonian strata oxygen and hydrogen isotope chemistry and carbon 14 age dating indicate these nacl brines were likely generated since the late pleistocene our conceptual model of fluid flow along the michigan basin margins and its role in generation of microbial gas were extrapolated to the larger glaciated midcontinent region where the silurian devonian carbonate subcrop is continuous along the illinois michigan and appalachian basin margins and is overlain by upper devonian black shales major differences in the hydrostratigraphy and fluid salinity of the epicratonic basins controlled the extent of meteoric water invasion and generation of microbial methane increased hydraulic gradients from melting of the continental ice sheets greatly enhanced recharge of dilute waters into deep silurian devonian aquifers and overlying fractured shales reversing regional scale groundwater flow and altering the major ion composition these fluid migration events occurred over relatively short time scales thousands of years compared to well documented basinal scale fluid migration events driven by tectonics and sediment compaction over millions of years understanding the hydrogeochemistry of the saline meteoric water mixing zones and the sources of salinity in sedimentary basins are both important for constraining fluid and solute transport chemical evolution of basinal fluids and physical stability of brines during meteoric water invasion