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Abrupt plate accelerations shape rifted continental margins

Nature volume 536, pages 201–204 (2016)Cite this article

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Abstract

Rifted margins are formed by persistent stretching of continental lithosphere until breakup is achieved. It is well known that strain-rate-dependent processes control rift evolution1,2, yet quantified extension histories of Earth’s major passive margins have become available only recently. Here we investigate rift kinematics globally by applying a new geotectonic analysis technique to revised global plate reconstructions. We find that rifted margins feature an initial, slow rift phase (less than ten millimetres per year, full rate) and that an abrupt increase of plate divergence introduces a fast rift phase. Plate acceleration takes place before continental rupture and considerable margin area is created during each phase. We reproduce the rapid transition from slow to fast extension using analytical and numerical modelling with constant force boundary conditions. The extension models suggest that the two-phase velocity behaviour is caused by a rift-intrinsic strength–velocity feedback, which can be robustly inferred for diverse lithosphere configurations and rheologies. Our results explain differences between proximal and distal margin areas3 and demonstrate that abrupt plate acceleration during continental rifting is controlled by the nonlinear decay of the resistive rift strength force. This mechanism provides an explanation for several previously unexplained rapid absolute plate motion changes, offering new insights into the balance of plate driving forces through time.

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Figure 1: Rift velocity evolution of the South Atlantic.
Figure 2: Other rift systems.
Figure 3: Analytical and numerical model with force boundary conditions.

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Acknowledgements

S.B. was funded by the Marie Curie International Outgoing Fellowship 326115, the German Research Foundation Priority Program 1375 SAMPLE, and the Helmholtz Young Investigators Group CRYSTALS. S.E.W., N.P.B. and R.D.M. were supported by Science and Industry Endowment Fund project RP 04-174 and Australian Research Council grant IH130200012. Simulations were performed on the cluster facilities of the German Research Centre for Geosciences. Figures were created using matplotlib, Tecplot and Matlab. We thank X. Qin and J. Cannon for their efforts developing the GPlates portal and pyGPlates infrastructure.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. GFZ German Research Centre for Geosciences, Telegrafenberg, Potsdam, 14473, Germany

    Sascha Brune

  2. EarthByte Research Group, School of Geosciences, 2006 University of Sydney, Sydney, Australia

    Sascha Brune, Simon E. Williams, Nathaniel P. Butterworth & R. Dietmar Müller

Authors
  1. Sascha Brune
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Contributions

S.B. and S.E.W. conceived the plate tectonic analysis. S.B. designed and conducted the thermo-mechanical modelling. S.B., S.E.W. and N.P.B. developed the pyGPlates workflow. S.B., S.E.W. and R.D.M. discussed and integrated the results. The paper was written by S.B. with contributions from all authors.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Sascha Brune.

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Competing interests

The authors declare no competing financial interests.

Additional information

The rift velocity database is accessible via an open-access virtual-globe web interface through http://portal.gplates.org/cesium/?view=rift_v.

Reviewer Information Nature thanks S. Buiter and R. Granot for their contribution to the peer review of this work.

Extended data figures and tables

Extended Data Figure 1 South Atlantic Rift and the central North Atlantic Rift.

a–h, The maps depict snapshots of the slow and fast rift phase in the South Atlantic Rift (a, b) and central North Atlantic Rift (e, f). We corroborate the inferred velocity history with key temporal constraints34,35,38,39,40,41 from geological and geophysical observations (c, g). For animations of the kinematic evolution, see Supplementary Videos 1 and 2.

Extended Data Figure 2 North America–Iberia Rift and the Australia–Antarctica Rift.

a–h, The maps depict snapshots of the slow and fast rift phase in the North America–Iberia Rift (a, b) and the Australia–Antarctica Rift (e–h). We corroborate the inferred velocity history with key temporal constraints3,30,42,43,44,45,46,47,48 from geological and geophysical observations (c, g). For animations of the kinematic evolution, see Supplementary Videos 3 and 4.

Extended Data Figure 3 South China Sea opening and the Gulf of California Rift.

a–h, The maps depict snapshots of the slow and fast rift phase in the South China Sea opening (a, b) and the Gulf of California Rift (e, f). We corroborate the inferred velocity history with key temporal constraints from49,50,51,52,53,54 geological and geophysical observations (c, g). For animations of the kinematic evolution, see Supplementary Videos 5 and 6.

Extended Data Figure 4 North America–Greenland Rift and the northeast Atlantic opening.

a–i, The maps depict snapshots of the slow and fast rift phase in the North America–Greenland Rift (a, b) and the northeast Atlantic opening (e–g). We corroborate the inferred velocity history with key temporal constraints55,56,57,58,59,60,61 from geological and geophysical observations (c, h). For animations of the kinematic evolution, see Supplementary Videos 7 and 8.

Extended Data Figure 5 Data coverage for construction of COBs.

We restrict our analysis to regions where seismic refraction data for both conjugate margins is available. Seismic refraction profiles are shown in blue, together with ‘point’ deep crustal seismic soundings linked together by gravity modelling. Red points represent a mixture of sonobuoys and deep reflection profiles. All references for displayed data are listed in Supplementary Table 2. Our preferred set of COBs (green) includes some areas where the basement is interpreted to comprise exhumed mantle or seaward dipping reflectors, but not basement formed by sea-floor spreading processes. The alternative set of COB geometries, defining the extreme landward limit of what basement that is not clearly continental crust, is shown in yellow. Underlying image shows global free-air gravity field69.

Extended Data Figure 6 Results using alternative, continent-ward set of COBs.

The COB set is shown in Extended Data Fig. 5 as yellow polygons. Breakup takes place earlier, yet the two-phase evolution is robustly represented in this end-member scenario.

Extended Data Figure 7 Final margin structures of numerical experiments.

Using model M1 as our reference model, we vary layer thickness, rheological flow laws, the thermal configuration, frictional softening, and thermal expansivity to compute models M2–M10. M5 uses a comparatively weak quartzite flow law70. The final margin structures feature a wide range of rifted margin geometries reproducing all observed configurations of wide, narrow, symmetrical and asymmetrical margins. Depending on rheological evolution, extension is accommodated by brittle faults, ductile shear zones or both. For all cases, the associated time-dependent extension velocity (shown on the right in blue) exhibits the characteristic two-phase behaviour of slow rifting during the first rift phase, speed-up during lithospheric necking and fast rifting before breakup. Blue lines correspond to the final margin structures on the left and represent model runs where the boundary force coincides with the integrated strength of the yield strength profiles. Grey lines depict parameter variations where the boundary force is larger or smaller than the lithospheric strength resulting in two-phase velocities with an earlier speed-up, or decreasing rift activity reproducing failed rifts, respectively.

Extended Data Figure 8 Alternative South Atlantic plate tectonic reconstructions.

a, b, Several end-member models are shown that differ in terms of the timing of final South Atlantic breakup, and intra-plate deformation. a, Map view evolution. b, Frequency of extension velocity considering the entire South Atlantic (top) or only the Northern and Southern Plates (middle and bottom, respectively). Southern plates are depicted as bold polygons in the map view (a). Plate models7,36 with a final breakup at ~110 Myr ago depict a speed-up at 125–120 Myr ago, while models with a later breakup8,37,62 at ~100 Myr ago also involve a later rift acceleration at ~110 Myr ago. Reconstructions in which large intra-plate deformation36,37,62 decouples northern and southern South America display first a speed-up of southern South America followed by a distinct speed-up of northern South America. Plate models with less internal deformation (for example, ref. 7) exhibit a minor acceleration of the southern plates followed by a large acceleration of entire South America. In all cases, plate kinematics show major speed-up about 10 Myr before breakup of the controlling rift segment.

Extended Data Table 1 Thermo-mechanical reference parameters
Full size table

Supplementary information

Supplementary Information

This file contains Supplementary Tables 1-2 and Supplementary References. Supplementary Table 1 lists the finite poles of rotations used to create reconstructions of the eight rifts considered in the study. Supplementary Table 2 contains the full list of references for seismic data displayed in Extended Data Figure 5. This data was used to define the COB polygons of this study. (PDF 200 kb)

Supplementary Data

This zipped file contains the global rotation file and the plate polygons used in the publication. (ZIP 94 kb)

South Atlantic Rift

Rift velocities are plotted as coloured circles and represent the full rate of extension. They are evaluated at overlapping plate polygons (black). Rift-ward polygon limits are defined through present-day boundaries between continental and oceanic crust (COBs). Grey arrows depict relative plate velocities in the plate interior. Grey lines show present-day coastlines and tectonic features moving with the plates. Snapshots of this animation are shown in Figure 1 and Extended Data Figure 1. (MP4 993 kb)

Central North Atlantic Rift

Rift velocities are plotted as coloured circles and represent the full rate of extension. They are evaluated at overlapping plate polygons (black). Rift-ward polygon limits are defined through present-day boundaries between continental and oceanic crust (COBs). Grey arrows depict relative plate velocities in the plate interior. Grey lines show present-day coastlines and tectonic features moving with the plates. Snapshots of this animation are shown in Extended Data Figure 1. (MP4 790 kb)

North America - Iberia Rift

Rift velocities are plotted as coloured circles and represent the full rate of extension. They are evaluated at overlapping plate polygons (black). Rift-ward polygon limits are defined through present-day boundaries between continental and oceanic crust (COBs). Grey arrows depict relative plate velocities in the plate interior. Grey lines show present-day coastlines and tectonic features moving with the plates. Snapshots of this animation are shown in Extended Data Figure 2. (MP4 876 kb)

Australia - Antarctica

Rift velocities are plotted as coloured circles and represent the full rate of extension. They are evaluated at overlapping plate polygons (black). Rift-ward polygon limits are defined through present-day boundaries between continental and oceanic crust (COBs). Grey arrows depict relative plate velocities in the plate interior. Grey lines show present-day coastlines and tectonic features moving with the plates. Snapshots of this animation are shown in Extended Data Figure 2. (MP4 1275 kb)

South China Sea

Rift velocities are plotted as coloured circles and represent the full rate of extension. They are evaluated at overlapping plate polygons (black). Rift-ward polygon limits are defined through present-day boundaries between continental and oceanic crust (COBs). Grey arrows depict relative plate velocities in the plate interior. Grey lines show present-day coastlines and tectonic features moving with the plates. Snapshots of this animation are shown in Extended Data Figure 3. (MP4 652 kb)

Gulf of California

Rift velocities are plotted as coloured circles and represent the full rate of extension. They are evaluated at overlapping plate polygons (black). Rift-ward polygon limits are defined through present-day boundaries between continental and oceanic crust (COBs). Grey arrows depict relative plate velocities in the plate interior. Grey lines show present-day coastlines and tectonic features moving with the plates. Snapshots of this animation are shown in Extended Data Figure 3. (MP4 461 kb)

North America - Greenland Rift

Rift velocities are plotted as coloured circles and represent the full rate of extension. They are evaluated at overlapping plate polygons (black). Rift-ward polygon limits are defined through present-day boundaries between continental and oceanic crust (COBs). Grey arrows depict relative plate velocities in the plate interior. Grey lines show present-day coastlines and tectonic features moving with the plates. Snapshots of this animation are shown in Extended Data Figure 4. (MP4 796 kb)

North East Atlantic Opening

Rift velocities are plotted as coloured circles and represent the full rate of extension. They are evaluated at overlapping plate polygons (black). Rift-ward polygon limits are defined through present-day boundaries between continental and oceanic crust (COBs). Grey arrows depict relative plate velocities in the plate interior. Grey lines show present-day coastlines and tectonic features moving with the plates. Snapshots of this animation are shown in Extended Data Figure 4. (MP4 2567 kb)

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Brune, S., Williams, S., Butterworth, N. et al. Abrupt plate accelerations shape rifted continental margins. Nature 536, 201–204 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1038/nature18319

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/nature18319

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