West Pacific and North Indian Ocean Seafloor and Their Ocean‐Continent Connection Zones: Evolution and Debates
Authors: ZHANG Guowei , LI Sanzhong , GUO Anlin , SUO Yanhui 
Published: December 2017

The Indian Ocean and the West Pacific Ocean and their ocean‐continent connection zones are the core area of “the Belt and Road”. Scientific and in‐depth recognition to the natural environment, disaster distribution, resources, energy potential of “the Belt and Road” development, is the cut‐in point of the current Earth science community to serve urgent national needs. This paper mainly discusses the following key tectonic problems in the West Pacific and North Indian oceans and their ocean‐continent connection zones (OCCZs): 1. modern marine geodynamic problems related to the two oceans. Based on the research and development needs to the two oceans and the ocean‐continent transition zones, this item includes the following questions. (1) Plate origin, growth, death and evolution in the two oceans, for example, 1) The initial origin and process of the triangle Pacific Plate including causes and difference of the Galapagos and West Shatsky microplates; 2) spatial and temporal process, present status and trends of the plates within the Paleo‐ or Present‐day Pacific Ocean to the evolution of the East Asian Continental Domain; 3) origin and evolution of the Indian Ocean and assembly and dispersal of supercontinents. (2) Latest research progress and problems of mid‐oceanic ridges: 1) the ridge‐hot spot interaction and ridge accretion, how to think about the relationship between vertical accretion behavior of thousands years or tens of thousands years and lateral spreading of millions years at 0 Ma mid‐oceanic ridges; 2) the difference of formation mechanisms between the back‐arc basin extension and the normal mid‐oceanic ridge spreading; 3) the differentials between ultra‐slow Indian Ocean and the rapid Pacific spreading, whether there are active and passive spreading, and a push force in the mid‐oceanic ridge; 4) mid‐oceanic ridge jumping and termination: causes of the intra‐oceanic plate reorganization, termination, and spatial jumps; 5) interaction of mantle plume and mid‐oceanic ridge. (3) On the intra‐oceanic subduction and tectonics: 1) the origin of intra‐oceanic arc and subduction, ridge subduction and slab window on continental margins, transform faults and transform‐type continental margin; 2) causes of the large igneous provinces, oceanic plateaus and seamount chains. (4) The oceanic core complex and rheology of oceanic crust in the Indian Ocean. (5) Advances on the driving force within oceanic plates, including mantle convection, negative buoyancy, trench suction and mid‐oceanic ridge push, is reviewed and discussed. 2. The ocean‐continent connection zones near the two oceans, including: (1) Property of continental margin basement: the crusts of the Okinawa Trough, the Okhotsk Sea, and east of New Zealand are the continental crusts or oceanic crusts, and origin of micro‐continent within the oceans; (2) the ocean‐continent transition and coupling process, revealing from the comparison of the major events between the West Pacific Ocean seamount chains and the continental margins, mantle exhumation and the ocean‐continent transition zones, causes of transform fault within back‐arc basin, formation and subduction of transform‐type continental margin; (3) strike‐slip faulting between the West Pacific Ocean and the East Asian Continent and its temporal and spatial range and scale; (4) connection between deep and surface processes within the two ocean and their connection zones, namely the assembly among the Eurasian, Pacific and India‐Australia plates and the related effect from the deep mantle, lithosphere, to crust and surface Earth system, and some related issues within the connection zones of the two oceans under the super‐convergent background. 3. On the relationship, especially their present relations and evolutionary trends, between the Paleo‐ or Present‐day Pacific plates and the Tethyan Belt, the Eurasian Plate or the plates within the Indian Ocean. At last, this paper makes a perspective of the related marine geology, ocean‐continent connection zone and in‐depth geology for the two oceans and one zone.