constraints on present day plate motions south of 30 s from satellite altimetry abstract gridded free air gravity anomalies derived from geosat and seasat altimetric observations are used to locate all mid ocean ridge transform faults south of 30 s and wherever possible assign azimuths and uncertainties useful for plate kinematic analysis a total of 131 ridge offsets longer than 30 km were located of which 114 are clearly transform faults with well defined valleys azimuthal uncertainties range from 0 6 for the longest transform faults to nearly 10 for the transform faults with lengths close to 30 km to assess whether the altimetrically derived azimuths are representative of present day plate slip directions azimuths of transform faults mapped with side scan sonar and side looking or conventional bathymetric systems were compared to their altimetrically derived counterparts comparison of these two independently estimated sets of azimuths using the x2 test shows no significant difference indicating that the altimetrically derived azimuths can be used where bathymetrically derived azimuths are not available we also find no evidence that large age offset transform faults are less representative of present day slip directions than short age offset transforms models constructed using the altimetrically derived azimuths fit the nuvel 1 spreading rates transform azimuths and earthquake slip vectors nearly as well as nuvel 1 as well as decreasing the model uncertainties thus the altimetrically derived azimuths offer improved accuracy and decreased uncertainties in estimates of global plate velocities without increasing non closures of plate circuits beyond the level already present in nuvel 1 in practical terms plate velocities predicted by models that substitute the altimetrically derived azimuths for all nuvel 1 transform azimuths from below 30 s never differ from velocities predicted by nuvel 1 by more than 0 3 mm yr 1 and 4 however the several degree azimuthal misfits to altimetrically derived azimuths from the africa antarctic and pacific antarctic plate boundaries are statistically significant and suggest there are several degree inaccuracies in the predictions of the nuvel 1 angular velocities the new catalog of southern hemisphere transform fault azimuths should prove useful for at least the following 1 improvement of models of deformation of the australian plate west of the macquarie ridge complex 2 improvement of estimates of motion between the australian and pacific plates 3 revision of upward bounds on the amount of seafloor deformation south of africa related to rifting of the african plate and 4 studies of a possible deforming zone within the south american plate east of the south sandwich trench

plate tectonic development of the south west indian ocean a revised reconstruction of east antarctica and africa a revised sequence of reconstructions for east antarctica relative to africa is generated from published seafloor spreading and fracture zone anomalies these date from the cretaceous tertiary boundary to the late jurassic and lead to a revised predrift reconstruction for east and west gondwanaland euler pole 1 67 s 35 99 e rotation angle 53 43 this reconstruction derived wholly from marine data places east antarctica adjacent to the lebombo mountains and south of and subparallel to the sabi acid volcanic suite supporting the postulate that these rocks represent mesozoic plate boundaries this refit implies that part of the coastal plain of mozambique is underlain by oceanic or very highly extended continental crust the reconstruction is supported by the alignment of 1 the cape fold belt with its antarctic equivalents and 2 the western limit of pan african reactivation of the mozambique mobile belt with the western limit of the sverdrupfjella metamorphic suite antarctica initially moved along a transform fault lying immediately east of and subparallel to the lebombo mountains the eastern face of the tugela cone the southeastern face of the falkland plateau in its reconstructed position and the eastern flank of the agulhas plateau in its reconstructed position at m10 time a triple junction formed near the tip of the falkland plateau implying that the oldest lineated magnetic anomalies in the eastern weddell sea associated with this triple junction cannot predate m10 at m2 time the mozambique ridge rifted from the astrid ridge in a ridge jump episode such an event may also explain the presence of magnetic anomalies in the southern mozambique basin gunnerus ridge conrad rise and del cano rise are all tectonically associated with the madagascar ridge

middle miocene to present plate tectonic history of the southern central american volcanic arc abstract new mid miocene to present plate tectonic reconstructions of the southern central american volcanic arc cava reveal that the inception of cocos ridge subduction began no earlier than 3 ma and possibly as late as 2 ma the cocos ridge has been displaced from the malpelo ridge to the southeast since 9 ma along the panama fracture zone pfz system ambiguous pfz and coiba fracture zone cfz interaction since 9 ma precludes conclusively establishing the age of initial cocos ridge subduction detailed reconstructions based on magnetic anomalies offshore reveal several other variations in subduction parameters beneath southern central america that preceded subduction of the cocos ridge including southeastward migration of the nazca cocos caribbean triple junction along the middle america trench mat from 12 ma to present and subduction of 2 km high scarps both parallel and perpendicular to the trench from 6 to 1 ma the timing of changes in subduction processes has commonly been determined by and correlated with geologic changes in the upper plate however reliable 40 ar 39 ar dating of these events has become available only recently abstr programs geol soc am 2002 these new dates better constrain the magmatic and structural history of southern costa rica observations from this data set include a gap in the volcanic record from 11 to 6 ma which coincides temporally with emplacement of most plutons in southern costa rica normal arc volcanism ceased after 3 5 ma in southern costa rica and pliocene mostly 1 5 ma adakite volcanism was widely distributed from central panama to southern costa rica though volumetrically insignificant this new data reveals that many geologic phenomena commonly attributed to subduction and underplating of the buoyant cocos ridge in fact precede inception of cocos ridge subduction and seem to correlate more favorably in time with earlier tectonic events adakite volcanic activity corresponds in space and time with the subduction of a large scarp associated with a tectonic boundary off southern panama regional unconformities and an 11 6 ma gap in arc volcanism match temporally with oblique subduction of the nazca plate beneath central and southern costa rica cessation of volcanic activity low temperature cooling of plutons in the cordillera de talamanca ct and rapid increases in sedimentation in the fore arc and back arc basins coincide with passage of the nazca cocos caribbean triple junction and initiation of subduction of rough crust associated with cocos nazca rifting 3 5 ma closely followed by initial subduction of the cocos ridge 2 3 ma none of the aforementioned geologic events occurred at a time that would allow for underplating by the cocos ridge rather they are probably related to complex interactions with subduction of complicated plates offshore all of the aforementioned events indicate that the southern central american subduction system has been in flux since at least 12 ma

statistical tests of additional plate boundaries from plate motion inversions we have investigated the application of the f ratio test a standard statistical technique to the results of relative plate motion inversions the method tests whether the improvement in fit of the model to the data resulting from the addition of another plate to the model is greater than that expected purely by chance this approach appears to be useful in determining whether additional plate boundaries are justified we confirm previous results favoring separate north american and south american plates with a boundary located between 30 n and the equator using chase s global relative motion data we show that in addition to separate west african and somalian plates separate west indian and australian plates with a best fitting boundary between 70 e and 90 e can be resolved these results are generally consistent with the observation that the indian plate s internal deformation extends somewhat westward of the ninetyeast ridge the relative motion pole is similar to minster and jordan s and predicts the nw se compression observed in earthquake mechanisms near the ninetyeast ridge

earthquakes in the davie ridge madagascar region and the southern nubian somalian plate boundary the largest earthquake sequence mb up to 6 4 and m0 up to 5 1018 nm to have struck eastern africa within the past 60 years occurred in may and june of 1985 off the coast of the tanzania mozambique border the epicenters are located on the northern extension of the davie ridge a prominent north south trending bathymetrie feature accompanied by distinct gravity anomalies a joint hypocenter location of the 14 largest events in this sequence appears as a cluster of epicenters with no apparent lineation al teleseismic distances p and sh waves generated by the two largest events of this sequence have nearly identical waveforms on the long period records of the worldwide standard seismograph network a formal inversion of the data shows a pure normal faulting mechanism on nodal planes striking slightly west of north at least two point sources are necessary to model each event one at a depth of 40 10 km and the other at about 20 5 km on a regional scale normal faulting seems to characterize the scattered seismicity throughout the region between madagascar and the eastern arm of the east african rift zone even though oceanic lithosphere dominates part of the region and no topographic expression of a rift system can be identified since normal faulting events of up to 25 5 km deep also characterize the scattered seismicity west of the topographic expression of the western arm of the rift zone at about the same latitude we propose that the southern termination of the nubian somalian plate boundary consists of a diffuse zone of east west extension up to 2000 km wide

global energy dissipation rate of deep ocean low frequency flows by quadratic bottom boundary layer drag computations from current meter data the global energy dissipation rate of deep ocean low frequency flows by quadratic bottom boundary layer drag is estimated in three ways first an average over the dissipations computed from the near bottom velocities recorded by 290 moored current meters is multiplied by the world ocean area second near global maps of surface velocities derived from satellite altimetry data are used to estimate the bias due to the sparse spatial coverage of the moorings third a relationship between bottom and surface flows computed over the mooring locations is used to estimate global maps of bottom flows from the surface data all three methods suggest that at least 0 2 tw of the wind power input into geostrophic flows is dissipated in deep water by quadratic bottom drag implications for the oceanic overturning circulation and for oceanic mesoscale eddy dynamics are briefly discussed

slumps canyons and related features on the continental margin off east london se africa sw indian ocean abstract bathymetric and seismic reflection surveys in the natal valley east of east london show that the most important factors in the neogene development of the outer continental margin have been large scale slumping and penecontemporaneous canyon formation slope wasting and allochthonous mass movements have shifted the foot of the continental slope up to 25 km basinward and have constructed extensive continental rise lobes shelf break breaching by canyon heads is considered an important factor in transferring sediment entrained in the agulhas current from the continental shelf to the deep ocean basin a preliminary sediment budget suggests that the continental rise lobes could have been constructed during the last 2 69 m y following an episode of massive slumping

an early cretaceous extinct spreading center in the northern natal valley abstract we have identified an extinct e w spreading center in the northern natal valley on the basis of magnetic anomalies which was active from chron m11 133 ma to 125 3 ma just before chron m2 124 ma in the early cretaceous seafloor spreading in the northern natal valley accounts for approximately 170 km of north south motion between the mozambique ridge and africa this extension resolves the predicted overlap of the continental central and southern mozambique ridge and antarctica in the chron m2 to m11 reconstructions from mesozoic finite rotation parameters for africa and antarctica in addition the magnetic data reveal that the mozambique ridge was an independent microplate from at least 133 to 125 ma the northern natal valley extinct spreading center connects to the spreading center separating the mozambique basin and the riiser larsen sea to the east it follows that the northern mozambique ridge was either formed after the emplacement of the surrounding oceanic crust or it is the product of a very robust spreading center to the west the extinct spreading center connects to the spreading center separating the southern natal valley and georgia basin via a transform fault prior to chron m11 there is still a problem with the overlap of mozambique ridge if it is assumed to be fixed with respect to either the african or antarctic plates some of the overlap can be accounted for by jurassic deformation of the mozambique ridge mozambique basin and dronning maud land it appears though that the mozambique ridge was an independent microplate from the breakup of gondwana 160 ma until it became part of the african plate 125 ma

folding of oceanic lithosphere folding of the lithosphere just south of the bay of bengal appears as 1 undulations in acoustic basement topography and 2 as linear geoid undulations in the seasat altimeter data from the seasat data we find that the east west trending folds have wavelengths ranging from 130 to 250 km and clustering about 190 km the horizontal gravity disturbances due to the folds range in amplitude from 15 to 50 mgal elastic models of oceanic lithosphere have in the past been used to demonstrate the implausibility of lithosphere buckling or folding in response to compression these elastic models typically predict that compressive stresses of about 5 gpa are required to buckle oceanic lithosphere with an age comparable to that of the northeastern indian ocean 40 70 ma these stresses exceed the strength of lithospheric rock we use an elastic plastic model to show that oceanic lithosphere of this age should have a net compressive strength equal to about 12 of the elastic buckling stress we further demonstrate that loads approaching the net compressive strength cause the lithosphere to fold with a wavelength about 200 km i e the wavelength observed from seasat our results reinforce earlier speculation that this folding may be related to the himalayan orogeny

the somalia plate and the east african rift system present day kinematics summary the motion of the somalia plate relative to the nubia africa arabia and antarctica platcs is re evaluated using a new inversion method based on a monte carlo technique and a least absolute value misfit criterion a subset of the nuvel 1 data set with additional data along the levant fault and in the red sea is used the results confirm that the motion of arabia with respect to africa is significantly different from the motion relative to somalia it is further shown that the data along the sw indian ridge are compatible with a pole of relative motion between africa and somalia located close to the hypothetical diffuse triple junction between the ridge and thc east african rift the resulting africa somalia motion is then compatible with the geological structures and seismological data along the east african rift system assuming a separate somalia plate thus solves kinematic and geological problems around the afar triple junction and along the east african rift

crustal structure across the southwest newfoundland transform margin a seismic refraction survey providing deep crustal structure information of the continent ocean boundary across the south west newfoundland transform margin was carried out using large air gun sources and ocean bottom seismometer receivers continental crust 30 km thick beneath the southern grand banks p wave velocity 6 2 6 5 km s thins oceanward to a 25 km wide transition zone in the transition zone paleozoic basement of the grand banks 5 5 5 7 km s is replaced by a basement of oceanic volcanics and synrift sediments 4 5 5 5 km s seaward of the transition zone the crust is oceanic in character with a velocity gradient from 4 7 to 6 5 km s and a thickness of 7 8 km oceanic layer 3 is absent no significant thickness of intermediate velocity 7 km s material is present at the continent ocean transition indicating that no under plating of continental crust has taken place the continent ocean transition across the transform margin is much narrower than across rifted margins supporting the

quaternary volcano tectonic activity in the soddo region western margin of the southern main ethiopian rift 1 we present an analysis of the distribution timing and characteristics of the volcano tectonic activity on the western margin of the southern main ethiopian rift in the soddo area latitudes between 7 10 n and 6 30 n the margin is characterized by the presence of numerous normal faults with limited vertical offset and often sigmoidal in shape which accommodate a gentle transition from the rift floor to the ethiopian plateau new radiocarbon dating indicates post 30 ka fault activity pointing to a significant late pleistocene holocene tectonic activity of the soddo margin comparison of the fault architecture with analog models suggests that deformation has been controlled by a sub e w roughly n100 e extension direction resulting in an oblique extension with respect to the roughly ne sw trending rift this well accords with inversion of fault slip data collected on faults with pleistocene holocene activity and is also in good agreement with recent gps data from the southern main ethiopian rift our data support a close correlation between the recent volcanic activity and deformation in the study area with eruptive vents located along the recent border faults the axial tectono magmatic activity is subordinate in the area these findings support a transition from axial tectono magmatic deformation in the northern main ethiopian rift to marginal deformation in the central and southern main ethiopian rift in turn indicating an along axis north to south decrease in rift maturity

intraplate deformation and closure of the australia antarctica africa plate circuit to determine the current motion between the australian antarctic and african plates and to test whether this plate circuit obeys closure all plate motion data available along the southeast southwest and central indian ridges are analyzed and reduced to 67 spreading rates 38 transform fault azimuths and 135 earthquake slip vectors carlsberg ridge data were excluded because they record india africa not australia africa motion new data include 10 new transform azimuths along the southwest indian ridge many slip vectors and a dense aeromagnetic survey along the southeast indian ridge all published and many unpublished magnetic profiles are modeled to determine rates consistently over a 3 m y time averaging interval for three reasons 1 magnetic profiles from the southeast and central indian ridges suggest recent spreading rate changes 2 some published rates differ for identical profiles and 3 prior studies have not used identical criteria and time scales to determine spreading rates the new rates differ from published rates by as much as 5 mm yr transform fault azimuths are estimated from bathymetry seasat altimetric data epicenter distributions and offsets of magnetic lineations azimuths of plate motion are also estimated from the horizontal projections of slip vectors from the centroid moment tensor solutions and other focal mechanism studies our new australia antarctica and australia africa euler vectors differ from all prior euler vectors at the 95 confidence level along the southeast and central indian ridges our model gives rates differing by 4 7 mm yr from those of prior models from a systematic analysis of the plate motion data we find no evidence for a nubia somalia antarctica triple junction along the southwest indian ridge we also find no evidence for a triple junction previously proposed to be at 80 e along the southeast indian ridge any deformation within this seismically active region of the australian plate adds up to less than a few millimeters per year along each boundary data are fit well by a single euler vector except for a 5 systematic misfit to azimuthal data along the eastern southeast indian ridge near a seismically active region of the australian plate south of tasmania although seismicity and the azimuthal misfit suggest the australian plate is deforming measurably possibly by distributed deformation or by the westward motion of a small microplate southeast of tasmania the significance of the misfit is marginal and is small enough that systematic errors may cause it these alternative explanations could be distinguished by surveying these transform faults with modern seafloor mapping techniques prior studies found that enforcing plate circuit closure causes systematic misfits to rates along the southeast indian ridge here we find that enforcing closure causes no systematic misfits to any data moreover only insignificant nonclosure is found by an f ratio test which numerical experiments suggest could detect deformation exceeding 2 mm yr we conclude that indian ocean plate circuit nonclosure and the deformation it suggests are much smaller than thought before the absence of significant nonclosure argues against the usefulness of a model of deformation distributed throughout an indo australian plate but favors a model in which the significant deformation occurs in a diffuse plate boundary along the equatorial indian ocean between the central indian ridge and the sumatra trench

quasi two dimensional simulation of scour and deposition in alluvial channels most existing sediment routing models are one dimensional models and hence they cannot be used to simulate lateral channel bed deformations conversely a two dimensional model is computationally time consuming and is not suitable for long term simulation using the stream tube concept a one dimensional model is extended to a quasi two dimensional model in this study it is capable of simulating lateral variations of channel cross section through the adjustments of stream tube boundaries the model has an option to treat the suspended load and bed load separately and hence is able to simulate the deposition behavior of the suspended sediment under a nonequilibrium process the model also provides options to solve either de saint venant equation or energy equation and hence can be applied in both steady and unsteady flow conditions an assess ment of this model s performance has been conducted through a comparison to an analytical solution and a set of experimental data the application of this model to the keelung river and the shiemen reservoir in taiwan also gave convincing results

structure of the transkei basin and natal valley southwest indian ocean from seismic reflection and potential field data abstract marine geophysical data from the southern natal valley and northern transkei basin offshore southeast africa were used to study the structure of the crust and sedimentary cover in the area the data includes seismic reflection gravity and magnetics and provides information on the acoustic basement geometry where available features of the sedimentary cover and the basin s development previously mapped mesozoic magnetic anomalies over a part of the basin are now recognized over wider areas of the basin the ability to extend the correlation to the southeast within the natal valley further confirms an oceanic origin for this region and provides an opportunity to amplify the existing plate boundary reconstructions the stratigraphic structure of the southern natal valley and the northern transkei basin reflects processes of the ocean crust formation and subsequent evolution the highly variable relief of the acoustic basement may relate to the crust formation in the immediate vicinity of the continental transform margin renewed submarine seismicity and neotectonic activity in the area is probably related to the diffuse boundary between the nubia and somalia plates 2 5 d crustal models show that a 1 7 3 2 km thick sediment sequence overlies a 6 3 1 2 km thick normal oceanic crust in the deep southern natal valley and transkei basin the oceanic crust in the study area is heterogeneous made up of blocks of laterally varying remanent magnetization 0 5 3 5 a m and density 2850 2900 kg m3 strong modifications of accretionary processes near ridge fracture zone intersections may be a reason of such heterogeneity

evidence for motion between nubia and somalia along the southwest indian ridge the east african rift marks the northern boundary of the nubian west african and somalian east african plates and has formed by horizontal stretching due to the separation of these plates1 south of 20 s any expression of deformation or seismicity due to the relative motion of these two distinct plates vanishes although the boundary must continue until it intersects another plate boundary the nearest such boundary is that of the antarctic plate marked by the southwest indian ridge but previous analyses of plate motion data have indicated no significant difference between nubia antarctica and somalia antarctica motion2 3 here we show using a large compilation of plate motion data that nubia antarctica motion does differ from somalia antarctica motion and we determine a relative angular velocity of the two plates that has compact confidence limits our analysis places the pole of rotation near to the southern limit of african seismicity implying that the southern part of the nubian somalian plate boundary is a diffuse zone of convergence up to 2 mm yr 1 whereas up to 6 mm yr 1 of separation is accommodated across the east african rift about half the separation rate of the slowest mid ocean ridge

geodetic measurements of crustal deformation in the western mediterranean and europe geodetic measurements of crustal deformation over large areas deforming at slow rates 5 mm yr over more than 1000 km such as the western mediterranean and western europe are still a challenge because 1 these rates are close to the current resolution of the geodetic techniques 2 inaccuracies in the reference frame implementation may be on the same order as the tectonic velocities we present a new velocity field for western europe and the western mediterranean derived from a rigorous combination of 1 a selection of sites from the itrf2000 solution 2 a subset of sites from the european permanent gps network solution 3 a solution of the french national geodetic permanent gps network rgp and 4 a solution of a permanent gps network in the western alps regal the resulting velocity field describes horizontal crustal motion at 64 sites in western europe with an accuracy on the order of 1 mm yr or better its analysis shows that central europe behaves rigidly at a 0 4 mm yr level and can therefore be used to define a stable europe reference frame in that reference frame we find that most of europe including areas west of the rhine graben the iberian peninsula the ligurian basin and the corsica sardinian block behaves rigidly at a 0 5 mm yr level in a second step we map recently published geodetic results in the reference frame previously defined geodetic data confirm a counterclockwise rotation of the adriatic microplate with respect to stable europe that appears to control the strain pattern along its boundaries active deformation in the alps apennines and dinarides is probably driven by the independent motion of the adriatic plate rather than by the africa eurasia convergence the analysis of a global gps solution and recently published new estimates for the african plate kinematics indicate that the africa eurasia plate motion may be significantly different from the nuvel1a values in particular geodetic solutions show that the convergence rate between africa and stable europe may be 30 60 slower than the nuvelia prediction and rotated 10 30 counterclockwise in the mediterranean

sediment transport modeling review current and future developments the use of computational models for solving sediment transport and fate problems is relatively recent compared with the use of physical models several considerations govern the choice between physical and computational models namely the nature of the problem that needs to be solved the available resources and the overall cost associated with the problem solution in some specific problems a combination of physical and computational models can be used to obtain a better understanding of the processes under investigation de vries 1973 using computational hydrodynamic sediment transport models in general involves the numerical solution of one or more of the governing differential equations of continuity momentum and energy of fluid along with the differential equation for sediment continuity an advantage of computational models is that they can be adapted to different physical domains more easily than physical models which are typically constructed to represent site specific conditions another advantage of computational models is that they are not subject to distortion effects of physical models when a solution can be obtained for the same flow conditions identical reynolds and froude numbers same length scale in the three directions etc as those present in the field with the rapid developments in numerical methods for fluid mechanics computational modeling has become an attractive tool for studying flow sediment transport and associated pollutant fate processes in such different environments as rivers lakes and coastal areas representative processes in these environments include bed aggradation and degradation bank failure local scour around structures formation of river bends fining coarsening and armoring of streambeds transport of point source and nonpoint

impact of earthquake induced dammed lakes on channel evolution and bed mobility case study of the tsaoling landslide dammed lake summary on may 12 2008 a mega earthquake measuring 8 0 on the richter scale hit wenchuan sichuan province of china causing severe casualties and damages the tremor was felt by nearly all of asia the quake induced landslides and sliding slopes also formed 34 dammed lakes of various sizes each of which may bring serious potential disasters understandably the earthquake triggered dammed lakes and their ensuing disasters cause grave concerns worldwide similar devastation took place in taiwan on september 21 1999 when an earthquake of 7 3 on the richter scale occurred with the epic center at jiji in central taiwan the earthquake affected changes in the channel course and induced landslides to form several dammed lakes among which a large dammed lake was created in the upstream chingshui river with reservoir capacity of 42 000 000 m 3 its size and potential problems therefore caused serious apprehension a series of subsequent typhoon induced torrential flooding events affected the channel forming processes to diverge drastically between the dammed lake and the landslide area which presented a rare phenomenon for data observation and research in the last century five dammed lakes had been formed in the area due to landslides suggesting high possibility of future recurrence particularly from earthquake activities an investigation of the channel evolution in this area prior and post a quake therefore can assist in current disaster handling protocols and provide policy guidelines for future crisis management when landslides occur topographic changes in the study watershed historical channel surveys and past studies were gathered to aid the geomorphologic analysis channel evolution in the tsaoling dammed lake and the landslide area was also investigated using a netstars channel scour deposition model by simulating the trends of erosion and deposition patterns under the influence of different recurrence interval flood peaks and streamflow time series this simulation analysis demonstrated that the modeling not only successfully predicted the variations of hydraulics and sedimentation along the steep reaches under the influence of various streamflow conditions but also properly reflected the trend of scouring and deposition in the entire study reach and the upstream migration of head cut

reduced mixing from the breaking of internal waves in equatorial waters in the oceans heat salt and nutrients are redistributed much more easily within water masses of uniform density than across surfaces separating waters of different densities but the magnitude and distribution of mixing across density surfaces are also important for the earth s climate as well as the concentrations of organisms most of this mixing occurs where internal waves break overturning the density stratification of the ocean and creating patches of turbulence predictions of the rate at which internal waves dissipate were confirmed earlier at mid latitudes here we present observations of temperature and velocity fluctuations in the pacific and atlantic oceans between 42 degrees n and 2 degrees s to extend that result to equatorial regions we find a strong latitude dependence of dissipation in accordance with the predictions in our observations dissipation rates and accompanying mixing across density surfaces near the equator are less than 10 of those at mid latitudes for a similar background of internal waves reduced mixing close to the equator will have to be taken into account in numerical simulations of ocean dynamics for example in climate change experiments

the relative motion between africa and eurasia as derived from itrf2000 and gps data 1 studies of intra and inter plate deformation typically need a model describing the motions of the stable part of the tectonic plates for reference purposes we have developed deos2k a model for the current motion of seven major tectonic plates derived from space geodetic observations this paper focuses on relative motion between africa and eurasia in the past this motion has been poorly established because of poor data coverage for africa deos2k is based on itrf2000 altamimi et al 2002 and new african gps observations it is an improvement over the nuvel 1a model for predicting the present day relative motions of these two plates deos2k predicts in northeastern africa that africa eurasia relative motion is about 40 smaller in magnitude than nuvel 1a and trends more to the northwest this is consistent with independent local geodetic observations a similar shift in orientation clockwise is observed at the western tip of the plate boundary

organization of stratification turbulence and veering in bottom ekman layers 1 detailed observations of the ekman spiral in the stratified bottom boundary layer during a 3 month period in an upwelling season over the oregon shelf suggest a systematic organization counter clockwise veering in the bottom boundary layer is constrained to the weakly stratified layer below the pycnocline and its height is nearly identical to the turbulent boundary layer height veering reaches 13 4 degrees near the bottom and exhibits a very weak dependence on the speed and direction of the interior flow and the thickness of the veering layer a simple ekman balance model with turbulent viscosity consistent with the law of the wall parameterization modified to account for stratification at the top of the mixed layer is used to demonstrate the importance of stratification on the ekman veering the model agrees reasonably well with observations in the lower 60 70 of the bottom mixed layer above which it diverges from the data due to the unaccounted physics in the interior neglect of stratification in an otherwise identical model results in far worse agreement with the data yielding veering in the bottom ekman layer which is much smaller than measured but distributed over a much thicker layer

the plate tectonic approximation plate nonrigidity diffuse plate boundaries and global plate reconstructions the central assumption of plate tectonics that plate interiors are rigid remains a useful but uncertain approximation strain rates of stable plate interiors are bounded between 10 i12 10 i11 year i1 and 4 10 i10 year i1 the narrowness of all plate boundaries the other main assumption of plate tectonics as originally conceived is contradicted by many observations both in the continents and in the oceans some diffuse plate boundaries in both continents and oceans exceed dimensions of 1000 km on a side diffuse plate boundaries cover 15 of earth s surface the maximum speed of relative plate motion across any one diffuse plate boundary ranges from 2t o 15 mm year which is faster than some upper bounds on intraplate motion across stable plate interiors 2m m year i1 strain rates in diffuse plate boundaries can be as high as 10 i8 year i1 25 times higher than the upper bound on strain rates of stable plate interiors but 600 times lower than the lowest strain rates across typical narrow plate boundaries the poles of rotation of the plates flanking a diffuse oceanic plate boundary tend to be located in the diffuse boundary which is a consequence of the strong coupling across the boundary

kinematic constraints on distributed lithospheric deformation in the equatorial indian ocean from present motion between the australian and indian plates from an expanded accurate and up to date data set comprising 110 spreading rates 46 transform azimuths and 151 earthquake slip vectors from the indian ocean and gulf of aden we determine a new rigid plate model describing the motion since 3 ma between india and australia the euler vector 0 313 m y about 5 s 78 e lies near the middle of the equatorial diffuse plate boundary dividing the indian from the australian plate and predicts a rate of north south shortening along 85 e of 4 3 mm yr only 30 as fast as predicted by our prior model the new model also predicts north south extension of 6 2 mm yr at 68 e along the western segment of the diffuse plate boundary where our prior model predicted north south contraction using data only along the carlsberg and central indian ridges and no other plate boundaries we show that plate motion data cannot be fit by a single euler vector however the data are well fit by two euler vectors when an east west striking india australia plate boundary is assumed to intersect the central indian ridge near the equator the best location along the central indian ridge for this triple junction is 6 s 3 s with 95 confidence limits of 9 s 4 n just west of a region of intense seismicity the sense of deformation as recorded in earthquake focal mechanisms reverse faults mapped with reflection seismic data and undulations in basement topography surface gravity and the geoid agrees well with the north south extension predicted in the western part and the north south shortening predicted in the eastern part of the india australia boundary the predicted rate of north south shortening between 79 e and 86 e is consistent with the rate of shortening inferred from observed faulting and folding shortening taken up by faulting is 6 to 100 times greater than that taken up by the spectacular basement folds little of the rapid north south shortening predicted east of 86 e is taken up by crustal thickening instead lithosphere is transported northeastward toward the sumatra trench through strike slip faulting and possible clockwise rotation the failure of the convergent segment of the diffuse plate boundary to form a subducting trench provides some new observations that must be satisfied by models for the initiation of subduction a model of separate rigid indian and australian plates divided by a diffuse plate boundary appears to be valid and useful because the predictions of the model agree with independent data and because the predicted velocity of relative motion is statistically significant and comparable with that across other plate boundaries

tectonic interpretation of the andrew bain transform fault southwest indian ocean 1 between 25 e and 35 e a suite of four transform faults du toit andrew bain marion and prince edward offsets the southwest indian ridge swir left laterally 1230 km the andrew bain the largest has a length of 750 km and a maximum transform domain width of 120 km we show that currently the nubia somalia plate boundary intersects the swir east of the prince edward placing the andrew bain on the nubia antarctica plate boundary however the overall trend of its transform domain lies 10 clockwise of the predicted direction of motion for this boundary we use four transform parallel multibeam and magnetic anomaly profiles together with relocated earthquakes and focal mechanism solutions to characterize the morphology and tectonics of the andrew bain starting at the southwestern ridge transform intersection the relocated epicenters follow a 450 km long 20 km wide 6 km deep western valley they cross the transform domain within a series of deep overlapping basins bounded by steep inward dipping arcuate scarps eight strike slip and three dip slip focal mechanism solutions lie within these basins the earthquakes can be traced to the northeastern ridge transform intersection via a straight 100 km long 10 km wide 4 5 km deep eastern valley a striking set of seismically inactive ne sw trending en echelon ridges and valleys lying to the south of the overlapping basins dominates the eastern central section of the transform domain we interpret the deep overlapping basins as two pull apart features connected by a strike slip basin that have created a relay zone similar to those observed on continental transforms this transform relay zone connects three closely spaced overlapping transform faults in the southwest to a single transform fault in the northeast the existence of the transform relay zone accounts for the difference between the observed and predicted trend of the andrew bain transform domain we speculate that between 20 and 3 2 ma an oblique accretionary zone jumping successively northward created the en echelon ridges and valleys in the eastern central portion of the domain the style of accretion changed to that of a transform relay zone during a final northward jump at 3 2 ma

unit stream power equation for gravel the basic assumptions used in the derivation of bedload or gravel transport equations are reviewed and examined to determine their validities laboratory data indicate that unit stream power is mor

mesozoic magnetic anomalies in the southern natal valley the recognition of mesozoic magnetic anomalies m0 m12 within the submarine natal valley south west indian ocean provides a further constraint on the relative motion between south america falkland plateau and africa during the early opening phase of west gondwanaland fig 1 colinear with m12 magnetic anomaly g ref 1 is delineated north of the south tugela ridge2 an acoustic basement high which is suspected to have been emplaced within continental crust immediately north of the continental oceanic crust boundary cob during the initial rifting phase starting from a revised west gondwana reconstruction3 and using palaeo poles of rotation1 3 the falkland plateau can be rotated into the natal valley superposing the corresponding georgia basin and natal valley magnetic anomalies this achieves an optimum continuity of inter continental structural lineaments3 by overlapping of an anomaly intermediate to m10 and m11 m10n4 this suggests that the natal valley cob is located between anomalies m10 and m11 implying that in this zone of south west gondwana seafloor spreading commenced at 125 myr

a deep seismic investigation of the flemish cap margin implications for the origin of deep reflectivity and evidence for asymmetric break up between newfoundland and iberia summary seismic reflection and refraction data were acquired along the southeast margin of flemish cap at a position conjugate to drilling and geophysical surveys across the galicia bank margin the data document first order asymmetry during final break up between newfoundland and iberia an abrupt necking profile of continental crust observed off flemish cap contrasts strongly with gradual tapering on the conjugate margin there is no evidence beneath flemish cap for a final phase of continental extension that resulted in thin continental crust underlain by a strong s like reflection which indicates that this mode of extension occurred only on the galicia bank margin compelling evidence for a broad zone of exhumed mantle or for peridotite ridges is also lacking along the flemish cap margin instead anomalously thin 3 4 km thick oceanic crust is observed this crust is highly tectonized and broken up by high angle normal faulting the thin crust and rift structures that resemble the abandoned spreading centre in the labrador sea suggest that initial seafloor spreading was affected by processes observed in present day ultra slow spreading environments landwards flemish cap is underlain by a highly reflective lower crust the reflectivity most likely originates from older palaeozoic orogenic structures that are unrelated to extension and break up tectonics

the initial gondwana break up a synthesis based on new potential field data of the africa antarctica corridor abstract 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

seismicity and seismotectonics of madagascar revealed by the 2011 2013 deployment of the island wide macomo broadband seismic array abstract the seismicity and seismotectonics of madagascar have been studied using an island wide distribution of broadband seismic stations the 28 station madagascar comoros mozambique macomo array was deployed for a 23 month period between 2011 and 2013 macomo data were supplemented by seven temporary stations from the seismological signatures in the lithosphere asthenosphere system of southern madagascar selasoma project ten temporary stations from the reunion hotspot and upper mantle reunions unterer mantel project rhum rum and 11 permanent stations a total of 695 earthquakes with magnitudes between ml1 and ml5 3 located within madagascar were recorded a new local magnitude scale was developed and focal mechanisms were determined for 23 well recorded events most of the seismicity is clustered within central madagascar forming nw se trends in the ankaratra region and ne sw trends in the alaotra and ankay regions that roughly align with extensional tectonic features the northern and southern parts of madagascar also show seismicity clusters that align parallel to existing tectonic features primarily precambrian shear zones focal mechanisms exhibit a wide orientation of nodal planes show predominantly normal faulting throughout madagascar and provide no evidence for a sharp east west striking plate boundary between the lwandle and somalian plates in the middle of the island however a diffuse plate boundary cannot be excluded we suggest that topographically generated extensional stresses is the cause of most seismicity given that significantly fewer earthquakes are located in the lower elevation areas of the island compared to regions of higher elevations the frequency magnitude distribution has a b value of 1 2 and indicates that events with magnitude ml5 or greater should occur with an average repeat time of 1 4 years however no earthquake exceeding ml6 has been recorded in the last century suggesting that the frequency magnitude distribution could be truncated

the mozambique ridge a document of massive multistage magmatism the mozambique ridge a prominent basement high in the southwestern indian ocean consists of four major geomorphological segments associated with numerous phases of volcanic activity in the lower cretaceous the nature and origin of the mozambique ridge have been intensely debated with one hypothesis suggesting a large igneous province origin high resolution seismic reflection data reveal a large number of extrusion centres with a random distribution throughout the southern mozambique ridge and the nearby transkei rise intrabasement reflections emerge from the extrusion centres and are interpreted to represent massive lava flow sequences such lava flow sequences are characteristic of eruptions leading to the formation of continental and oceanic flood basalt provinces hence supporting a large igneous province origin of the mozambique ridge we observe evidence for widespread post sedimentary magmatic activity that we correlate with a southward propagation of the east african rift system based on our volumetric analysis of the southern mozambique ridge we infer a rapid sequential emplacement between 131 and 125 ma which is similar to the short formation periods of other large igneous provinces like the agulhas plateau

continental rift architecture and patterns of magma migration a dynamic analysis based on centrifuge models 1 small scale centrifuge models were used to investigate the role of continental rift structure in controlling patterns of magma migration and emplacement experiments considered the reactivation of weakness zones in the lower crust and the presence of magma at moho depths results suggest that surface deformation which reflects the weakness zone geometry exerts a major control on patterns of magma migration in the case of a single rift segment the experimental lower crust and magma were both transferred in an extension parallel direction toward the rift flanks this lateral migration reflected the dominance of far field stresses over extension induced buoyancy forces local pressure gradients favored the raise of experimental magma in correspondence of marginal grabens the lateral migration gave rise to major accumulations below the footwall of major boundary faults providing the magma source able to feed off axis volcanoes in nature as inferred for the main ethiopian rift in the case of two offset rift segments a major transfer zone developed this transfer zone was characterized by prominent experimental lower crust doming and strong magma accumulation dynamic analysis showed that the transfer zone development caused a strong pressure difference in a rift parallel direction which dominated over the far field thinning owing to this pressure gradient almost all the underplated experimental magma collected below the lower crust dome suggesting a rift parallel extension orthogonal migration this process has a direct relevance for the localization of magmatic activity at transfer zones in natural continental rifts such as in the western branch of the east african rift system

statistical tests for closure of plate motion circuits the standard method of testing whether data describing the relative motion of three plates meeting at a triple junction are consistent with rigid plate tectonics uses the condition of plate circuit closure the euler vectors or angular velocities describing the relative motion of each plate pair must sum to zero deviations from closure suggest that the data are systematically in error or that the plate boundaries have been identified incorrectly or that the plates are non rigid we examine two methods one based on a chi square test and the other based on an f ratio test of testing whether plate motion circuits close we find the latter test is useful but the former is of limited value because of the common practice of systematically overestimating errors in plate motion data we apply the f ratio test to minster and jordan s data for the boundaries dividing the pacific cocos and nazca plates which prove consistent with plate circuit closure application of the test to their data for the boundaries dividing the australian antarctic and african plates shows nonclosure even after deletion of data from the carlsberg ridge which recently has been suggested to divide the african plate from an indo arabian plate this nonclosure suggests systematic errors in the data or internal deformation of one or more of the plates meeting at the indian ocean triple junction

finite amplitude folding of a continuously viscosity stratified lithosphere we study the development of finite amplitude folding of the lithosphere through the application of finite element models characterized by both discontinuous layer over half space and continuous strength envelope viscosity distributions both models include strongly strain rate dependent rheologies that approximate slip on pervasive faults folding with layers of form contrasting viscosities is driven solely bye magnitudes of discontinuities in viscosity at layer interfaces however folds may also develop in a medium with a continuously varying viscosity distribution the net driving force for folding in a region of continuous viscosity variation is the same as the driving force across a discontinuity with the same net viscosity contrast continuous and discontinuous viscosity variations give essentially identical fold growth rates if the depth over which the viscosity varies is small compared to the wavelength of folding or the depth of the viscosity variation in the uniform viscosity layer model flexural bending of the layer results in a state of extension on topographic highs and compression in topographic lows in contrast the strength envelope model is characterized by significant penetrative shortening near the surface that results in a state of compression everywhere along the fold this model predicts layer thickening beneath fold troughs as observed in the intmpladeformation zone in the central indian ocean buocy forces retard the rate of fold amplification but are inadequato prevent folding for a range of realistic lithospheric theological structures

crustal structure of the southwest indian ridge at 66 e seismic constraints the southwest indian ridge represents a slow spreading end member of the global mid ocean ridge system and as such its structure places important constraints on models of melt supply and delivery from the mantle at ridges we present results from a wide angle seismic experiment conducted at the ridge axis at 66 e in a region that has comprehensive swath bathymetric gravity and magnetic data coverage and where the full spreading rate is 12 mm yr 1 based on these data the experiment traversed four spreading segments crustal thickness and velocity structure were determined along three intersecting profiles each 100 km long using shots from a 10 gun 71 l tuned airgun array towed at 15 m depth and fired at 40 s intervals recorded on three ocean bottom hydrophones on each profile obh data show high amplitude arrivals from oceanic layer 2 lower amplitude arrivals from layer 3 and wide angle reflections from the moho forward modelling and inversion of traveltime picks from these data show that the crust consists of a 1 5 2 5 km thick layer 2 with a high velocity gradient and a 0 5 3 0 km thick layer 3 with a low velocity gradient and a crustal thickness of 2 2 5 4 km additional constraints on the models come from 2 d modelling of gravity data along the profiles corrected for 3 d effects of off line bathymetry along axis the thickness of layer 2 varies little but layer 3 is thick at segment centres and very thin at segment boundaries along a flowline profile crustal thickness varies by up to 75 per cent from its minimum value in 3 myr the reduced crustal thickness is consistent with observations from very slow spreading ridge axes elsewhere and may be explained by conductive cooling of the upwelling mantle the large along axis variations in layer 3 thickness indicate that magmatic accretion is focused at segment centres and melt is delivered to segment ends perhaps only by lateral dyke propagation flowline variations in crustal thickness may result from episodicity of melt supply on timescales of 3 myr and by tectonic extension during amagmatic periods velocities at the top of layer 2 are poorly correlated with crustal age based on magnetic anomalies suggesting also that episodicity is decoupled between adjacent segments

abyssal upwelling and downwelling driven by near boundary mixing abstracta buoyancy and volume budget analysis of bottom intensified mixing in the abyssal ocean reveals simple expressions for the strong upwelling in very thin continental boundary layers and the interior near boundary downwelling in the stratified ocean interior for a given amount of antarctic bottom water that is upwelled through neutral density surfaces in the abyssal ocean between 2000 and 5000 m up to 5 times this volume flux is upwelled in narrow turbulent sloping bottom boundary layers while up to 4 times the net upward volume transport of bottom water flows downward across isopycnals in the near boundary stratified ocean interior these ratios are a direct result of a buoyancy budget with respect to buoyancy surfaces and these ratios are calculated from knowledge of the stratification in the abyss along with the assumed e folding height that characterizes the decrease of the magnitude of the turbulent diapycnal buoyancy flux away from the seafloor these strong diapycnal upward and downwa

a study of the bottom boundary layer over the eastward scarp of the bermuda rise velocity and temperature measurements from the bottom boundary layer bbl over the eastward scarp of the bermuda rise in water depth of 4620 m show little variability over an 8 month period the free stream flow 62 m above the bottom was south southeasterly following the isobaths in the region with an average speed of 22 cm s the current vector in the bbl rotated an average of 5 in a counterclockwise sense between 62 and 0 8 m above the bottom the thickness of the bbl was 40 m and the average magnitude of the bottom stress was 0 7 dynes cm2 mean speed profiles height of the bbl and the magnitude of the bottom stress predicted by a model compare favorably with the observations but the model predicts a rotation of the current vector between 62 and 0 8 m more than twice that measured the time dependent nature of the flow field is also reproduced by the model the bermuda rise data and speed profile measurements at the base of the scotian rise show that the m2 clockwise polarized tide is damped more than the mean current as the bottom is approached in the bbl this phenomenon is reproduced by the model and can be explained by differing effective ekman layer thicknesses associated with tidal and steady components of the flow

deformation of indian ocean lithosphere evidence for a highly nonlinear rheological law the width of diffuse oceanic plate boundaries is determined by the rheology of oceanic lithosphere here we apply thin viscous sheet models which have been successfully applied to deformation in several continental deforming zones to investigate the deformation of oceanic lithosphere in the diffuse oceanic plate boundaries between the india capricorn and australia plates we apply kinematic boundary conditions based on the current motion between these plates we neglect buoyancy forces due to plate thinning or thickening and assume that the thin viscous sheet has the same depth integrated nonlinear viscosity coefficient everywhere our initial models have only one adjustable parameter n the power law exponent with n 1 3 10 30 and 100 the predicted width of the deforming zone decreases with increasing n with n 30 explaining the observations this n value is higher than has been estimated for continental lithosphere and suggests that more of the strength of oceanic lithosphere lies in layers deforming by faulting or by dislocation glide than for continental lithosphere to obtain a stress field that better fits the distribution and type of earthquake focal mechanisms in the diffuse oceanic plate boundary we add a second adjustable parameter representing the effect of slab pull stretching the oceanic plate near the sumatra trench we show that an average velocity increment on this boundary segment of 5 mm a 1 relative to the average velocity of the india and australia plates fits the observed distribution of fault types better than velocities of 3 3 mm a 1 or 10 mm a 1

gps constraints on africa nubia and arabia plate motions summary we use continuously recording gps cgps and survey mode gps sgps observations to determine euler vectors for relative motion of the african nubian arabian and eurasian plates we present a well constrained eurasia nubia euler vector derived from 23 igs sites in europe and four cgps and three sgps sites on the nubian plate 0 95 4 8 n 21 8 4 3 e 0 06 0 005 myr 1 we see no significant 1m m yr 1 internal deformation of the nubian plate the gps nubian eurasian euler vector differs significantly from nuvel 1a 21 0 4 2 n 20 6 0 6 e 0 12 0 015 myr 1 implying more westward motion of africa relative to eurasia and slower convergence in the eastern mediterranean the arabia eurasia and arabia nubia gps euler vectors are less well determined based on only one cgps and three sgps sites on the arabian plate the preliminary arabia eurasia and arabia nubia euler vectors are 27 4 1 0 n 18 4 2 5 e 0 40 0 04 myr 1 and 30 5 1 0 n 25 7 2 3 e 0 37 0 04 myr 1 respectively the gps arabia nubia euler vector differs significantly from nuvel 1a 24 1 1 7 n 24 0 3 5 e 0 40 0 05 myr 1 but is statistically consistent at the 95 per cent confidence level with the revised euler vector reported by chu gordon based on a re evaluation of magnetic anomalies in the red sea 31 5 1 2 n 23 0 2 7 e 0 40 0 05 myr 1 the motion implied in the gulf of aqaba and on the dead sea fault dsf by the new gps nubia arabia euler vector i e ignoring possible sinai block motion and possible internal plate deformation grades from pure left lateral strike slip in the gulf and on the southern dsf with increasing compression on the central and northern dsf with relative motion increasing from 5 6 to 7 5 mm yr 1 1m m yr 1 from south to north along the northern dsf i e north of the lebanon restraining bend motion is partitioned between 6 1m m yr 1 left lateral motion parallel to the fault trace and 4 1m m yr 1 faultnormal compression relative motions on other plate boundaries including the anatolian and aegean microplates derived from the gps euler vectors agree qualitatively with the sense of motion indicated by focal mechanisms for large crustal earthquakes m 6 where data are available on fault slip rates on plate bounding faults north anatolian fault east anatolian fault dead sea fault red sea rift they are generally lower than but not significantly different from the full plate motion estimates suggesting that the majority of relative plate motion is accommodated on these structures

east african earthquake body wave inversion with implications for continental structure and deformation summary source parameters for five african intraplate events are obtained from body wave inversion for the moment tensor parameters for the events are as follows location date mb strike dip rake depth ethiopia 4 05 69 5 8 327 1 69 2 45 0 4 zaire 3 20 66 6 3 44 6 44 9 81 5 10 zambia 12 2 68 5 9 20 3 40 2 264 8 6 zambia 5 15 68 5 7 49 1 39 8 263 2 28 s africa 9 29 69 5 6 123 5 89 4 0 58 4 the ethiopia and zaire events exhibit normal faulting as would be expected for their rift zone locations the 1968 may 15 zambia event is unusual in that p pp separation times place its focus in the lower crust 28 km which may be below the brittle ductile transition zone implying high strain rates inversion yielded a high angle normal fault the depth and focal mechanism of this event along with the mechanism for the 1968 december 2 zambia event suggest southwestward rift extension teleseismic long period vertical p waves from the south africa event exhibit distortions that may be attributed to lateral inhomogeneities in the source structure

historical seismicity and implications for diffuse plate convergence in the northeast indian ocean large historical earthquakes provide constraints on the geographical extent and kinematics of the slow diffuse plate boundary extending from the central indian ridge to the sumatra trench the fault parameters of pre 1963 earthquakes are derived using a grid search for the best fit between observed and synthetic body waveforms surface wave spectral amplitudes and polarity and polarization constraints and location uncertainties are determined using a bootstrap resampling method the march 9 1928 ninetyeast ridge m 7 7 event shows left lateral strike slip faulting along a plane approximately coincident with the orientation of the ninetyeast ridge two small events which occurred at the location of the 1928 event in 1980 show focal mechanisms nearly identical to that determined for the 1928 earthquake and apparently reactivated the same fault the 1928 waveforms can also be fit by a thrust faulting solution with ene striking fault planes but a variety of evidence including the recent strike slip earthquakes at the same location suggest the strike slip solution these earthquakes are located along the western scarp of the ridge and do not represent reactivation of the ninetyeast fracture zone to the east of the edifice which was a major plate boundary in the early cenozoic the january 23 1949 m 6 75 and march 22 1955 m 7 0 wharton basin earthquakes although only 350 km apart show different strike slip and thrust faulting mechanisms all earthquakes show a regionally consistent pattern of horizontal compressional stress which changes from nw se in the wharton basin to n s in the central indian basin the compressional axes are oriented perpendicular to linear gravity anomalies associated with lithospheric flexure indicating little change in stress orientation since the onset of folding seismic deformation along the diffuse boundary consists of sinistral strike slip faulting associated with n s features such as the ninetyeast ridge and the 86 e fracture zone and thrust or reverse faulting in regions between fracture zones assuming transform motion the approximate slip rate along the northern ninetyeast ridge calculated from the summed moments of earthquakes is 2 8 mm yr this value is an order of magnitude less than previous estimates and suggests that at most only a small fraction of the current relative plate motion 7 mm yr occurs along the ridge the geographic distribution of seismicity suggests that the wharton basin east of the ninetyeast ridge is nearly as seismically active as the central indian basin to the west this result along with observed long wavelength gravity anomalies in the wharton basin indicates that the india australia plate boundary intersects the sumatra trench along a diffusely deforming region several thousand kilometers long rather than along a discrete transform zone

african stress pattern from formal inversion of focal mechanism data abstract the kinematic models and the associated orientation of extensional stress of the east african rift system have been subjected to much debate since a long time in the past decades the proposed models relied on the interpretation of the overall rift geometry geological fault slip data and the few focal mechanisms available these models generally suffer of a poor time control and an underestimation of the possible changes in the stress field and geodynamic regime with time and space in the recent years there has been a significant increase in the number of focal mechanisms available for the entire rift system and it is now possible to estimate the present day stress field in relative detail based on seismotectonic data alone we compile 347 focal mechanism data from the global harvard cmt catalogue and various other sources and grouped 332 of them in 24 distinct regions boxes on the basis of their geographical proximity kinematic homogeneity and tectonic setting for each box and for the same data set reduced stress tensors have been obtained by formal stress inversion using both the tensor program delvaux sperner 2003 and the slick method michael 1984 1987 both inversion methods show in comparable results in terms of horizontal stress axes orientations and tectonic stress regimes which stem for the robustness of the approach the obtained stress pattern reflects a complex interaction between 1st order effects as different driving forces including plate boundary forces and 2nd and 3rd order effects as gravitational potential of topography intra lithospheric processes and the influence of structural heterogeneities of the rift structures the evidence present in the stress orientations of the 2nd and 3rd order stress pattern as the variations in the horizontal stress axes along the axis of the rift are of particular interest as they were not yet captured or shown in earlier numerical models of the stress field additional sources of tectonic forces in supplement to the gravitational potential energy forces as considered in the earlier models are necessary to explain the observed patterns

latitudinal distribution of mixing rate caused by the m2 internal tide abstract ten years of ocean topography experiment topex poseidon tidal data and an energy balance relation are used to estimate the mixing rate caused by m2 internal tides in the upper ocean the results indicate that latitudinal distribution of the mixing rate has a generally symmetrical structure with respect to the equator the maxima are distributed around 28 9 n and 28 9 s and can be as high as 3 8 10 5 m2 s 1 in the pacific 5 10 5 m2 s 1 in the atlantic and 3 7 10 5 m2 s 1 in the indian oceans the minimum which is only 10 of those at 28 9 is located near the equator the data imply that midlatitudes are the key regions for internal tide mixing

global estimates of seafloor slope from single beam ship soundings 1 rough topography on the ocean floor is a source of ocean mixing which is of interest to both physical oceanography and climate science most mixing has been attributed to high slopes of the large scale structures of the deep ocean floor such as seamounts continental margins and mid ocean ridge axes in this paper we show the small scale but ubiquitous abyssal hills and fracture zones dominate the global map of rough topography much of this rugged seafloor occurs in the southern ocean on the flanks of the pacific antarctic rise and southwest indian ridge we present our results as a global map of the mean slope of the ocean floor and as a global map of the ocean floor above them2 critical slope we compare our results to multibeam and satellite bathymetry data to show that satellite bathymetry is not a valid proxy for multibeam measurements but edited single beam sonar data are adequate to provide a global perspective on features with horizontal wavelengths as small as 2 km

early tectonic extension between the agulhas bank and the falkland plateau due to the rotation of the lafonia microplate abstract along the southeast african continental margin a deep sedimentary basin and marginal ridge bordering the agulhas fracture zone formed coevally with south american counterparts underlying the falkland plateau extension in both the southern outeniqua and the falkland basin is related to large angle 100 rotation of the lafonia falkland islands block in middle late jurassic times during attempted propagation of the proto indian ocean across the active circum pacific margin of gondwanaland in the early cretaceous the jurassic microplate boundaries were partly reactivated and partly transected by a right lateral shear along the 1200 km long falkland agulhas transform fault preceded by substantial vorticity of the surrounding crustal blocks this boundary segment separating the south american and african plates was probably generated by complex geodynamic interactions between oceanic plate subduction continental to back arc rift propagation and the impingement of deep mantle plumes on the lithosphere

recent kinematics of the tectonic plates surrounding the red sea and gulf of aden this work was funded by the miur prin prot 20125jkany the geodas ship track data used in this study can be found at ngdc http www ngdc noaa gov mgg geodas trackline html

the motion and boundary between the capricorn and australian plates the motions between the somalian antarctic and australian plates the three plates believed to meet at the rodrigues triple junction in the indian ocean are inconsistent with the assumption that all three plates are rigid the discrepancy is best explained if the australian plate contains two component plates thus the traditionally defined indo australian plate consists of three component plates and multiple diffuse plate boundaries the pattern of present deformation indicates that the boundaries between the three component plates are two unconnected zones accommodating divergence and a larger zone which we interpret as three diffuse convergent plate boundaries and a diffuse triple junction

rate of serpentinization in seafloor environments the permeability of partially serpentinized peridotites has been measured near room temperature and found to be in the range of 10 11 to 10 12 darcys or 10 7 to 10 8 cm2 sec 1 comparable to shaley materials serpentinites act as semipermeable membranes to salt ions in ocean crust and deep groundwater environments serpentinization must be a continuous process controlled only by water access to ultramafic rocks through their cover given this it will generate high local strains and stresses with episodic cracking the serpentinization process may also contribute to heat flow and ocean floor topography

transport and bottom boundary layerobservations of the north atlantic deep western boundary current at the blake outer ridge abstract the north atlantic deep western boundary current dwbc was surveyed at the blake outer ridge over 14 days in july and august 1992 to determine its volume transport and to investigate its bottom boundary layer bbl this site was chosen because previous investigations showed the dwbc to be strong and bottom intensified on the ridge s flanks and to have a thick bbl the primary instrument used was the absolute velocity profiler a free falling velocity and conductivity temperature depth device in two sections across the width of the dwbc volume transports of 17 1 sv and 18 1 sv were measured for all water flowing equatorward below a potential temperature of 6 c 1 sv 1 10 6 m 3 s 1 transport values were derived using both absolute velocities and avp referenced geostrophic velocities and were the same within experimental uncertainty good agreement was found between our results and historical ones when both were similarly bounded and referenced although this was a short term survey the mean of a 9 day time series of absolute velocity profiles was the same as the means of year long current meter records at three depths in the same location a turbulent planetary bbl was found everywhere under the current the thickness of the bottom mixed layer bml where concentrations of density nutrients and suspended sediments were vertically uniform was asymmetrical across the current and up to 5 times thicker than the bbl there was no velocity shear above the bbl within the thicker bmls and the across slope density gradient was very small the extra thick bml is perhaps maintained by a combination of processes including turbulence downwelling ekman transport a weak up slope return flow above the bbl and buoyant convection from the bbl into the bml the frictional bottom stress was mostly balanced by a down stream change in the current s external potential energy evidenced by a drop in the velocity core of the current

current plate motions across the red sea summary a new objective method is used to estimate precisely 64 rates of seafloor spreading since chron 2a 3 2 ma from all the red sea magnetic profiles available from 15 9 to 26 n the fastest spreading rate 16 mm yr 1 occurs near 18 n whereas the slowest rate 10 mm yr 1 occurs at 25 5 n and is consistent with the rate predicted from arabia nubia data to the south the standard deviation of the spreading rates is 0 8 mm yr 1 much smaller than the median standard deviation of 4 mm yr 1 previously assigned to spreading rates in the global plate motion model nuvel 1 demets et al 1990 the fit to the spreading rates as well as the locations of earthquakes in and near the red sea indicate that spreading south of approximately 17 7 n is less than the full rate of spreading between the arabian and nubian plates the red sea spreading centre is instead usefully interpreted as the boundary between the arabian plate and a danakil microplate that includes the subaerial danakil block and a larger oceanic portion of lithosphere despite the absence of reliable azimuths of transform faults in the red sea all components of the angular velocity of arabia relative to nubia are usefully constrained from just the 45 relevant spreading rates the new compact 95 per cent confidence region of the angular velocity excludes prior estimates based on only four and two spreading rates by chase 1978 and jestin et al 1994 respectively 19 spreading rates in the southern red sea are used to estimate the angular velocity between the danakil microplate and arabia an approach based on singular value decomposition shows that without slip vectors only two of the three components of the angular velocity of the danakil microplate relative to arabia or nubia are usefully constrained but that all three components are usefully constrained if one earthquake slip vector is included

new angles on south atlantic opening existing models of relative motion between the south america and africa plates significantly misrepresent the azimuth of lower cretaceous seafloor spreading in the south atlantic ocean an improved model is derived from fits of fracture zones magnetic reversal anomalies and the edges of a rifted large igneous province at the northeast georgia rise and agulhas plateau an absolute date for this rifting event is not known but by assuming least change in spreading rates during magnetic chron c34 rifting can be estimated to have occurred at 100 ma this modelling demands a plate divergence history that involves diachronous opening of the south atlantic consistent with published estimates of the ages of breakup from sedimentary basins on the south american and african passive margins the diachronous opening lasts approximately 40 million years during which time it must be accommodated by significant intracontinental deformation a reconstruction using the intra c34 rotation also illustrates the earliest possibility for direct deep water connection between the central and south atlantic oceans one further consequence of this model is that a total reconstruction derived from it and closure of the central atlantic between north america and africa suggests that the venezuelan and gulf of mexico basins may be conjugates formed during the earliest opening of the central atlantic and not separate marginal basins

seasat derived gravity constraints on stress and deformation in the northeastern indian ocean we use seasat derived gravity data to investigate crustal deformation in the ne indian ocean gravity highs reflecting crustal undulations vary in orientation from e w in the central indian basin to ne sw in the wharton basin the undulations vary in trend similarly to the variation of the maximum compression directions predicted by a plate driving force model cloetingh and wortel 1985 and are essentially restricted to the area of predicted compression for both principal horizontal stresses this agreement implies that the stress model describes the basic features of the deformation observed in the gravity as well as the seismicity the gravity data also provide insight into two enigmatic tectonic features the transition in the morphology of the 90 e ridge at 10 s from a continuous high to a complex blocky structure appears related to the deformation since undulations in the central indian basin can be projected eastward to blocks on the ridge the morphology formerly interpreted as a fossil feature may reflect the recent deformation the discrepancy between the trends of the southernmost 85 e ridge and the 90 e ridge previously thought to exclude similar hot spot track origins appears to result from treating a crustal undulation as part of the 85 e ridge earthquakes do not appear to be preferentially located with respect to the peaks and troughs of the undulations

a revised fit of south america and south central africa abstract a new set of parameters for the total plate tectonic reconstruction of south america and south central africa is presented euler pole 46 75 n 32 65 w rotation angle 56 40 this fit is constrained by at least three pre drift tectonic features crossing from one continent to the other 1 the geophysically defined eastern and western boundaries of the submarine jurassic outeniqua basin south africa and the falkland plateau basin 2 the late precambrian transcurrent fault and mylonite belts of pernambuco brazil and foumban west africa and 3 the triassic northern tectonic front of the cape fold belt and the major morphological feature on the falkland plateau with which it is closely lined up isotopic ages of falkland plateau gneisses correspond to cape pluton and cape fold belt ages suggesting their palaeoposition was within the realm of the cape fold belt in addition the bathymetrically and geophysically defined northeastern apex of the falkland plateau fits into the re entrant angle defined on the south african margin by the steep southeast facing sheared agulhas margin and the southern face of the tugela cone simultaneously known precambrian outcrops in northeastern brazil and in the gulf of benin area of west africa are juxtaposed rather than overlapped reconstructions producing a closer fit of these cratonic areas are considered untenable

present day motion along the owen fracture zone and dalrymple trough in the arabian sea all plate motion data available for describing the present day motion between the arabian and indian plates are analyzed to understand the present day tectonic role of the presumed plate boundary the owen fracture zone and dalrymple trough in the northern arabian sea all prior plate motion models are shown to be inconsistent with some of the data along the presumed boundary in particular published global plate motion models predict some convergence across the owen fracture zone and dalrymple trough convergence along the owen fracture zone is contradicted by earthquake focal mechanisms which show right lateral strike slip convergence along the dalrymple trough is contradicted by observed normal faulting in the trough and by normal and strike slip focal mechanisms for earthquakes occurring along or near the trough the sense and rate of motion is further constrained by spreading rates along the sheba ridge northwest of the owen fracture zone and along the carlsberg ridge southeast of the owen fracture zone to estimate the present day motion we determine 43 3 m y average spreading rates from sheba ridge carlsberg ridge and central indian ridge magnetic profiles and have combined them with eight transform azimuths and 15 earthquake slip vectors along these ridges and the arabia india boundary we determine an arabia india euler vector that predicts 2 mm yr of right lateral strike slip motion along the owen fracture zone with a 95 confidence interval of 0 7 mm yr which excludes the faster rates of slips predicted by several prior models the direction of motion is 35 50 counterclockwise from that predicted by published global plate motion models if we omit the data along the arabia india boundary the motion differs insignificantly from zero suggesting that magnetic profiles from the carlsberg and sheba ridges give spreading rates too imprecise to detect the slow arabia india motion if the owen fracture zone and dalrymple trough are regarded as a plate boundary it is the slowest slipping plate boundary known on earth with motion about 100 times slower than the fastest slipping faults along the east pacific rise

isostatic response of the lithosphere beneath the mozambique ridge sw indian ocean and geodynamic implications summary the sw indian ocean is characterized by the presence of several aseismic features the mozambique ridge an elongated feature lying roughly parallel to the se coast of africa is by far the least known of those structures mainly due to the scarcity of marine data to date the crustal nature and the origin of the ridge are still controversial points since knowledge of the origin of the mozambique ridge is important for a better understanding of the evolution of the sw indian ocean the isostatic response of the lithosphere beneath the ridge is analysed in order to characterize its effective elastic thickness and the emplacement process of the feature two different approaches are applied the direct computation of the geoid anomaly over the ridge by means of a 2 5 dimensional method and the computation of the admittances between the bathymetry and both the geoid and gravity anomalies both approaches point to a local isostatic response of the lithosphere the crustal thickness beneath the mozambique ridge ranges from 17 to 30 km and the average density from 2 78 to 2 7 103 kg m 3 varying with locality in good agreement with the few existing refraction profiles based on our results on the geochemical similarity between the basalts cored at the dsdp site 249 and the mor basalts erlank reid 1974 thompson et al 1982 and on the present knowledge of the sw indian ocean kinematics martin hartnady 1986 we propose an on ridge origin for the mozambique ridge the ridge would have been formed by the anomalous activity of a spreading axis linking the northern mozambique and the transkei basins accretion centres between m10 and m2 times at the m2 epoch a ridge jump event would have caused the spreading to cease the astrid ridge a poorly known aseismic structure lying close to the coast of antarctica near 15 e may be the antarctic counterpart of the mozambique ridge formed by the same accretionary phenomenon the two ridges breaking apart at m2 time due to the ridge jump event however any admittance computation at such high latitudes is impossible at present due to the very poor quality of both bathymetry and altimetry and so this hypothesis cannot be verified

tobi sidescan sonar imagery of the very slow spreading southwest indian ridge evidence for along axis magma distribution new deep tow sidescan sonar data from the southwest indian ridge reveal complex volcanic tectonic interrelationships in the axial zone of this ultra slow spreading ridge while some constructional volcanic features resemble examples documented at the slow spreading mid atlantic ridge such as axial volcanic ridges hummocky and smooth lava flows their distribution and dimensions differ markedly the largest axial volcanic ridges occur at segment centres but fresh looking volcanic constructions also occur at segment ends and in the deep basins marking the non transform discontinuities the orientations of the dominant fault population and main volcanic ridges are controlled by tectonic processes such as orthogonal extension in the sections of the ridge perpendicular to the spreading direction and transtensional extension in the obliquely spreading sections of the ridge minor faults and small volcanic ridges striking parallel to the axis in the oblique part of the ridge are not controlled by these extensional regimes this observation suggests that the ridge axis acts as a zone of weakness and that magmatic processes with associated fractures opening in response to magma pressure may control local emplacements of axial volcanic ridges at obliquely spreading ridges this non systematic pattern of ridge characteristics suggests an along axis variation between focused and distributed magmatic supply a model which is supported by our interpretation of low amplitude mantle bouguer anomalies calculated for the area we propose that a change of the axial segmentation pattern from two segments to the present day three segments may have introduced additional instability into the crustal accretion process

crustal magnetization and accretion at the southwest indian ridge near the atlantis ii fracture zone 0 25 ma 1 we analyze geophysical data that extend from 0 to 25 myr old seafloor on both flanks of the southwest indian ridge swir lineated marine magnetic anomalies are consistent and identifiable within the study area even over seafloor lacking a basaltic upper crust the full spreading rate of 14 km myr has remained nearly constant since at least 20 ma but crustal accretion has been highly asymmetric with half rates of 8 5 and 5 5 km myr on the antarctic and african flanks respectively this asymmetry may be unique to a 400 km wide corridor between large offset fracture zones of the swir in contrast to the mid atlantic ridge crustal magnetization amplitudes correlate directly with seafloor topography along the present day rift valleys this pattern appears to be primarily a function of along axis variations in crustal thickness rather than magnetic mineralogy off axis magnetization amplitudes at paleo segment ends are more positive than at paleo segment midpoints suggesting the presence of an induced component of magnetization within the lower crust or serpentinized upper mantle alteration of the magnetic source layer at paleo segment midpoints reduces magnetization amplitudes by 70 80 within 20 myr of accretion magnetic and ocean drilling program odp hole 735b data suggest that the lower crust cooled quickly enough to lock in a primary thermoremanent magnetization that is in phase with that of the overlying upper crust thus magnetic polarity boundaries within the intrusive lower crust may be steeper than envisioned in prior models of ocean crustal magnetization as the crust ages the lower crust becomes increasingly important in preserving marine magnetic stripes

3 d analysis and interpretation of magnetotelluric data from the aluto langano geothermal field ethiopia the main ethiopian rift valley encompasses a number of volcanoes which are known to be actively deforming with reoccurring periods of uplift and setting one of the regions where temporal changes take place is the aluto volcanic complex it hosts a productive geothermal field and the only currently operating geothermal power plant of ethiopia we carried out magnetotelluric mt measurements in early 2012 in order to identify the source of unrest broad band mt data 0 001 1000 s have been acquired at 46 sites covering the expanse of the aluto volcanic complex with an average site spacing of 1 km based on this mt data it is possible to map the bulk electrical resistivity of the subsurface down to depths of several kilometres resistivity is a crucial geophysical parameter in geothermal exploration as hydrothermal and magmatic reservoirs are typically related to low resistive zones which can be easily sensed by mt thus by mapping the electrical conductivity one can identify and analyse geothermal systems with respect to their temperature extent and potential for production of energy 3 d inversions of the observed mt data from aluto reveal the typical electrical conductivity distribution of a high enthalpy geothermal system which is mainly governed by the hydrothermal alteration mineralogy the recovered 3 d conductivity models provide no evidence for an active deep magmatic system under aluto forward modelling of the tippers rather suggest that occurrence of melt is predominantly at lower crustal depths along an off axis fault zone a few tens of kilometres west of the central rift axis the absence of an active magmatic system implies that the deforming source is most likely situated within the shallow hydrothermal system of the aluto langano geothermal field

characterization of double diffusive convection steps and heat budget in the deep arctic ocean 1 in this paper we explore the hydrographic structure and heat budget in the deep canada basin by using data measured with mclane moored profilers mmp bottom pressure recorders bpr and conductivity temperature depth ctd profilers upward from the bottom a homogeneous bottom layer and its overlaying double diffusive convection ddc steps are well identified at mooring a 75 n 150 w we find that the deep water is in weak diapycnal mixing because the effective diffusivity of the bottom layer is 1 8 10 5 m2s 1 while that of the other steps is 10 6 m2s 1 the vertical heat flux through the ddc steps is evaluated by using different methods we find that the heat flux 0 1 11 mwm 2 is much smaller than geothermal heating 50 mwm 2 this suggests that the stack of ddc steps acts as a thermal barrier in the deep basin moreover the temporal distributions of temperature and salinity differences across the interface are exponential whereas those of heat flux and effective diffusivity are found to be approximately lognormal both are the result of strong intermittency between 2003 and 2011 temperature fluctuations close to the sea floor were distributed asymmetrically and skewed toward positive values which provide a direct observation that geothermal heating was transferred into the ocean both bpr and ctd data suggest that geothermal heating and not the warming of the upper ocean is the dominant mechanism responsible for the warming of deep water as the ddc steps prevent vertical heat transfer geothermal heating is unlikely to have a significant effect on the middle and upper arctic ocean

a diffuse plate boundary model for indian ocean tectonics it is suggested that motion along the virtually aseismic owen fracture zone is negligible so that arabia and india are contained within a single indo arabian plate divided from the australian plate by a diffuse boundary the boundary is a zone of concentrated seismicity and deformation commonly characterized as intraplate the rotation vector of australia relative to indo arabia is consistent with the seismologically observed 2 cm yr of left lateral strike slip along the ninetyeast ridge north south compression in the central indian ocean and the north south extension near chagos