Abstract
Upper oceanic crust at fast- to intermediate-spreading mid-ocean ridges is thought to form from the intrusion and eruption of magma accumulated within a mid-crustal reservoir present beneath the ridge axis1,2,3. However, the mechanisms for formation of the lower crust are debated4,5,6,7,8. Observations from pieces of ancient oceanic crust exposed on land — ophiolites — imply that multiple small magma lenses exist throughout the lower crust at mid-ocean ridges and help form the crust4,6,7, yet seismic data have imaged only a single lens beneath the innermost axial zones of various mid-ocean ridges1,2,3. Here we use high-fidelity seismic data to image the crust beneath the East Pacific Rise. We identify a series of reflections below the axial magma lens that we interpret as magma lenses in the upper part of the lower crust. These reflections are present between 9° 20′ and 9° 57′ N and are located up to 1.5 km below the axial magma lens. From the geometry and amplitude of the reflections in a zone beneath a recent volcanic eruption9, we infer that magma drained from a lower lens helped replenish the axial magma lens above and, perhaps, contributed to the eruption. Our data indicate that a multi-level complex of magma lenses is present beneath the East Pacific Rise and probably contributes to the formation of both the upper and lower crust.
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Acknowledgements
We thank Captain M. Landow, crew, and technical staff led by R. Steinhaus. We are also very grateful to J. Malloy, D. Foster and C. Mosher from ConocoPhillips for comments and suggestions on the technical part of the paper. This research was supported by NSF awards OCE0327872 to J.C.M. and S.M.C., OCE-0327885 to J.P.C., and OCE0624401 to M.R.N.
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All authors participated in the MCS field experiment. M.M. carried out the MCS processing and data analysis. M.M. and S.M.C. interpreted the data and wrote the paper with contributions from all co-authors.
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Marjanović, M., Carbotte, S., Carton, H. et al. A multi-sill magma plumbing system beneath the axis of the East Pacific Rise. Nature Geosci 7, 825–829 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1038/ngeo2272
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/ngeo2272
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