Northeast Atlantic passive continental margins: Rifting and subsidence processes

Montadert, L.; Charpal, O. De; Roberts, D.G.; Guennoc, Pol; Sibuet, Jean‐Claude

doi:10.1029/me003p0154

Cited by 140 publications

(123 citation statements)

References 33 publications

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“…Recent advances in understanding the development and evolution of Atlantic type (tensional) continental margins (e.g., Montadert et al, 1979a;Royden et al, 1980;LePichon and Sibuet, 1981) also contribute to our understanding of the early evolution of the South Atlantic. The above studies and the results from Deep Sea Drilling Project (DSDP) Leg 75 enable us to modify and improve previous ideas and hypotheses concerning the initiation and early evolution of the South Atlantic.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Early Evolution of the South Atlantic Ocean: Role of the Rifting Episode

Sibuet¹,

Hay²,

Prunier³

et al. 1984

Initial Reports of the Deep Sea Drilling Project

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For the South Atlantic Ocean, the rifting period began during the Oxfordian-Kimmeridgian and ended progressively from the Hauterivian near the Agulhas Plateau to the early Albian in the vicinity of the Niger Delta. The Walvis Ridge/Rio Grande Rise system acted as a dam to marine incursions into the Angolan and Brazilian basins until the midAptian. The Parana Basin and the Torres syncline (Brazil), the Eastern Walvis Ridge and the Kaokoveld region (Namibia) form an originally continuous volcanic terrane created in the continental domain during the Late Jurassic-Early Cretaceous by tensional processes. This terrane corresponds to a failed rift arm extending into South America and involving about 100 km of extension in the Late Jurassic to Early Cretaceous. These factors provide new constraints for the early kinematic evolution of the South Atlantic.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Early Evolution of the South Atlantic Ocean: Role of the Rifting Episode

Sibuet¹,

Hay²,

Prunier³

et al. 1984

Initial Reports of the Deep Sea Drilling Project

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“…(Bronner et al, 2011;Nirrengarten et al, 2017). Whatever the significance of these anomalies, a mid-late Early Cretaceous onset of spreading based on the width of the Bay of Biscay oceanic domain was postulated decades ago (Williams, 1975;Montadert et al, 1979).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Crustal structure and evolution of the Pyrenean-Cantabrian belt: A review and new interpretations from recent concepts and data

et al. 2018

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International audienceThis paper provides a synthesis of current data and interpretations on the crustal structure of the Pyrenean-Cantabrian orogenic belt, and presents new tectonic models for representative transects. The Pyrenean orogeny lasted from Santonian (~84 Ma) to early Miocene times (~20 Ma), and consisted of a spatial and temporal succession of oceanic crust/exhumed mantle subduction, rift inversion and continental collision processes at the Iberia-Eurasia plate boundary. A good coverage by active-source (vertical-incidence and wide-angle reflection) and passive-source (receiver functions) seismic studies, coupled with surface data have led to a reasonable knowledge of the present-day crustal architecture of the Pyrenean-Cantabrian belt, although questions remain. Seismic imaging reveals a persistent structure, from the central Pyrenees to the central Cantabrian Mountains, consisting of a wedge of Eurasian lithosphere indented into the thicker Iberian plate, whose lower crust is detached and plunges northwards into the mantle. For the Pyrenees, a new scheme of relationships between the southern upper crustal thrust sheets and the Axial Zone is here proposed. For the Cantabrian belt, the depth reached by the N-dipping Iberian crust and the structure of the margin are also revised.The common occurrence of lherzolite bodies in the northern Pyrenees and the seismic velocity and potential field record of the Bay of Biscay indicate that the precursor of the Pyrenees was a hyperextended and strongly segmented rift system, where narrow domains of exhumed mantle separated the thinned Iberian and Eurasian continental margins since the Albian-Cenomanian. The exhumed mantle in the Pyrenean rift was largely covered by a Mesozoic sedimentary lid that had locally glided along detachments in Triassic evaporites. Continental margin collision in the Pyrenees was preceded by subduction of the exhumed mantle, accompanied by the pop-up thrust expulsion of the off-scraped sedimentary lid above. To the west, oceanic subduction of the Bay of Biscay under the North Iberian margin is supported by an upper plate thrust wedge, gravity and magnetic anomalies, and 3D inclined sub-crustal reflections. However, discrepancies remain for the location of continent-ocean transitions in the Bay of Biscay and for the extent of oceanic subduction. The plate-kinematic evolution during the Mesozoic, which involves issues as the timing and total amount of opening, as well as the role of strike-slip drift, is also under debate, discrepancies arising from first-order interpretations of the adjacent oceanic magnetic anomaly record

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“…It has been tentatively interpreted as the seismic signature of a syn-rift detachment fault (Wernicke and Burchfiel, 1982;Boillot et al, 1987;Hoffman and Reston, in press) and as décollement at the brittle-ductile transition within the thinned continental crust (de Charpal et al, 1978;Montadert et al, 1979;Sibuet, 1992). The S reflector may also represent the tectonic contact between continental crustal material and underlying serpentinized peridotite, marking a detachment fault that was rooted in the mantle (Boillot et al, 1989(Boillot et al, ,1992.…”

Section: The S Reflectormentioning

confidence: 99%