Search for: All records

Abstract Seismicity along mid‐ocean ridges and oceanic transform faults provides insights into the processes of crustal accretion and strike‐slip deformation. In the equatorial Atlantic ocean, the slow‐spreading Mid‐Atlantic Ridge is offset by some of the longest‐offset transform faults on Earth, which remain relatively poorly understood due to its remote location far from land‐based teleseismic receivers. A catalog of T‐phase events detected by an array of 10 autonomous hydrophones deployed between 2011 and 2015, extending from 20°N to 10°S is presented. The final catalog of 6,843 events has a magnitude of completeness of 3.3, compared to 4.4 for the International Seismic Center teleseismic catalog covering the same region, and allows investigation of the dual processes of crustal accretion and transform fault slip. The seismicity rate observed at asymmetric spreading segments (those hosting detachment faults) is significantly higher than that of symmetric spreading centers, and 74% of known hydrothermal vents along the equatorial Mid‐Atlantic Ridge occur on asymmetric spreading segments. Aseismic patches are present on nearly all equatorial Atlantic transform faults, including on the Romanche transform where regional rotation and transpression could explain both bathymetric uplift and reduction in seismic activity. The observed patterns in seismicity provide insight into the thermal and mechanical structure of the ridge axis and associated transform faults, and potentially provide a method for investigating the distribution of hydrothermal vent systems. 

ABSTRACT Seismic rays traveling just below the Moho provide insights into the thermal and compositional properties of the upper mantle and can be detected as Pn phases from regional earthquakes. Such phases are routinely identified in the continents, but in the oceans, detection of Pn phases is limited by a lack of long-term instrument deployments. We present estimates of upper-mantle velocity in the equatorial Atlantic Ocean from Pn arrivals beneath, and flanking, the Mid-Atlantic Ridge and across several transform faults. We analyzed waveforms from 50 earthquakes with magnitude Mw>3.5, recorded over 12 months in 2012–2013 by five autonomous hydrophones and a broadband seismograph located on the St. Peter and St. Paul archipelago. The resulting catalog of 152 ray paths allows us to resolve spatial variations in upper-mantle velocities, which are consistent with estimates from nearby wide-angle seismic experiments. We find relatively high velocities near the St. Paul transform system (∼8.4  km s−1), compared with lower ridge-parallel velocities (∼7.7  km s−1). Hence, this method is able to resolve ridge-transform scale velocity variations. Ray paths in the lithosphere younger than 10 Ma have mean velocities of 7.9±0.5  km s−1, which is slightly lower than those sampled in the lithosphere older than 20 Ma (8.1  km±0.3  s−1). There is no apparent systematic relationship between velocity and ray azimuth, which could be due to a thickened lithosphere or complex mantle upwelling, although uncertainties in our velocity estimates may obscure such patterns. We also do not find any correlation between Pn velocity and shear-wave speeds from the global SL2013sv model at depths <150  km. Our results demonstrate that data from long-term deployments of autonomous hydrophones can be used to obtain rare and insightful estimates of uppermost mantle velocities over hundreds of kilometers in otherwise inaccessible parts of the deep oceans. 

At slow-spreading ridges, plate separation is commonly partly accommodated by slip on long-lived detachment faults, exposing upper mantle and lower crustal rocks on the seafloor. However, the mechanics of this process, the subsurface structure, and the interaction of these faults remain largely unknown. We report the results of a network of 56 ocean-bottom seismographs (OBSs), deployed in 2016 at the Mid-Atlantic Ridge near 13°N, that provided dense spatial coverage of two adjacent detachment faults and the intervening ridge axis. Although both detachments exhibited high levels of seismicity, they are separated by an ~8-km-wide aseismic zone, indicating that they are mechanically decoupled. A linear band of seismic activity, possibly indicating magmatism, crosscuts the 13°30′N domed detachment surface, confirming previous evidence for fault abandonment. Farther south, where the 2016 OBS network spatially overlapped with a similar survey done in 2014, significant changes in the patterns of seismicity between these surveys are observed. These changes suggest that oceanic detachments undergo previously unobserved cycles of stress accumulation and release as plate spreading is accommodated.