This is a PDF file of an unedited manuscript that has been accepted for publication. As a service to our customers we are providing this early version of the manuscript. The manuscript will undergo copyediting, typesetting, and review of the resulting proof before it is published in its final form. Please note that during the production process errors may be discovered which could affect the content, and all legal disclaimers that apply to the journal pertain. Contrary to what is commonly believed, it is argued from analogue and numerical models that detachments that accommodate exhumation of core complexes do not initiate at the onset of extension but in the course of progressive extension when the exhuming ductile crust reaches the surface. In models, convex upward detachments result from a rolling hinge process.
A C C E P T E D M A N U S C R I P TMantle core complexes develop in either the oceanic lithosphere, at slow and ultra-slow spreading ridges, or in continental lithospheres, whose initial Moho temperature is lower than 750°C, with "sub-Moho mantle-dominated" strength profiles. It is argued that the mechanism of mantle exhumation at passive margins is a nearly symmetrical necking process at
ACCEPTED MANUSCRIPTA C C E P T E D M A N U S C R I P T 2 lithosphere scale without major and permanent detachment, except if strong strain localization could occur in the lithosphere mantle. Distributed crustal extension, by upper crust faulting above a décollement along the ductile crust increases toward the rift axis up to crustal breakup.Mantle rocks exhume in the zone of crustal breakup accommodated by conjugate mantle shear zones that migrate with the rift axis, during increasing extension.