Correlations of oceanic spreading rates and hiatus surface area in the North Atlantic realm

Abstract

The North Atlantic realm is strongly affected by the Iceland-Jan Mayen mantle-hotspot system. Its strength has varied over time, with consequences for evolving plate-driving forces and topography maintained dynamically by convective stresses in the mantle. Here, we combined reconstructions of Atlantic spreading rates with maps of geological hiatuses at the scale of continental Europe. We extracted hiatus information from a geological map of Europe (scale 1:5 million)-at the available temporal resolution of geological series-to construct hiatus maps for the basal Paleocene to Pliocene Series boundaries across the North Atlantic realm and Europe. The maps allow one to visualize first-order changes in hiatus intensity and spatial extent; they serve as a reference frame and proxy tool for paleogeographic analysis of topography; and they reveal that episodes of spreading acceleration in the North Atlantic coincide with episodes of erosion/ nondeposition intensification at the continental scale of Europe. Such patterns are not predicted by the plate mode of mantle convection, but they are generally consistent with the plume mode. Interregional-scale hiatus mapping may serve as a powerful new technique to visualize these effects, especially once the temporal resolution of the maps has been refined. Interpretation of such hiatal surfaces is most effective in a context with theoretical frameworks, such as the plume mode of mantle convection.

Continent-scale Hiatus Maps for the Atlantic Realm and Australia since the Upper Jurassic and links to mantle flow induced dynamic topography

“…It visualizes interregional-scale unconformities because, at continental scales, what is normally perceived as a lack of data (material eroded or not deposited) becomes part of the dynamic topography signal. The method has been applied to map the temporal and spatial patterns of conformable and unconformable geological contacts across Europe [34] and Africa [35].…”

Palaeogeological hiatus surface mapping: a tool to visualize vertical motion of the continents

“…Recent studies are typically based on quantitative analysis of sedimentary basins (e.g. Japsen et al 2012; Kukla, Strozyk & Mohriak, 2018; Vibe et al 2018), landscapes (e.g. Green et al 2018; Guillocheau et al 2018) or mountainous regions (Prenzel et al 2018; Sehrt et al 2018), but need to be assimilated in vertical surface motion models at interregional scales (e.g.…”

Ripple Tectonics—When Subduction Is Interrupted

“…In the Atlantic, sedimentation tripled over the Argentinian and Malvinas basins of the southern Atlantic during the Miocene-Pliocene transition [29] [30] and is associated with a decrease in the south Atlantic spreading rate [31]. The drastic decrease around 6 Ma was reported across the southern Atlantic [32] [33], the central Atlantic offshore Iberia [34], and the northern Atlantic [35] [36]. A simultaneous and rapid increase in subsidence occurred across the margins of the North Atlantic and Arctic oceans, in the Central North Sea, the Labrador Sea and Grand Banks, offshore western Greenland, the Nova Scotia continental shelf and the United States Atlantic margin.…”