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Continuous exhumation of mantle-derived rocks at the Southwest Indian Ridge for 11 million years

Nature Geoscience volume 6, pages 314–320 (2013)Cite this article

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Abstract

The global mid-ocean ridge system, where tectonic plates diverge, is traditionally thought of as the largest single volcanic feature on the Earth. Yet, wide expanses of smooth sea floor in the easternmost part of the Southwest Indian Ridge in the Indian Ocean lacks the hummocky morphology that is typical for submarine volcanism. At other slow-spreading ridges, the sea floor can extend by faulting the existing lithosphere, along only one side of the ridge axis. However, the smooth sea floor in the easternmost Southwest Indian Ridge also lacks the corrugated texture created by such faulting. Instead, the sea floor is smooth on both sides of the ridge axis and is thought to be composed of altered mantle-derived rocks. Here we use side-scan sonar to image the sea floor and dredge samples to analyse the composition of two sections of the Southwest Indian Ridge, between 62° 05′ E and 64° 40′ E, where the sea floor formed over the past 11 million years. We show that the smooth floor is almost entirely composed of seawater-altered mantle-derived rocks that were brought to the surface by large detachment faults on both sides of the ridge axis. Faulting accommodates almost 100% of plate divergence and the detachment faults have repeatedly flipped polarity. We suggest that this tectonic process could also explain the exhumation of mantle-derived rocks at the magma-poor margins of rifted continents.

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Figure 1: Bathymetric map with the side-scan sonar tracks and dredges of the SMOOTHSEAFLOOR cruise on the SWIR.
Figure 2: Bathymetric maps of the axial domain in two sections of the SWIR.
Figure 3: Simplified geological sections in two smooth seafloor areas.
Figure 4: Eastward three-dimensional view of the axial valley in the eastern survey area and interpretative cross-section (1.5 and no vertical exaggeration respectively).
Figure 5: Schematic illustration of the flip-flop model of continuous exhumation of mantle-derived rocks at the eastern magma-poor part of the SWIR.

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Acknowledgements

Funding was provided by ANR grant ‘Rift2Ridge’ and support by INSU/CNRS and IPEV. This is IPGP contribution 3370.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institut de Physique du Globe de Strasbourg, UMR CNRS 7516, Université de Strasbourg, 1 rue Blessig, 67084 Strasbourg cedex, France

    Daniel Sauter, Adrien Bronner, Gianreto Manatschal & Véronique Mendel

  2. Equipe de Géosciences Marines, Institut de Physique du Globe de Paris, Sorbonne Paris Cité, Univ Paris Diderot, UMR CNRS 7154, 75005 Paris, France

    Mathilde Cannat, Stéphane Rouméjon, Julie Carlut, Bénédicte Ménez & Valerio Pasini

  3. Laboratoire des Sciences de la Terre, ENS et Université de Lyon, 2 rue Raphael Dubois, 69622 Villeurbanne Cedex, France

    Muriel Andreani

  4. Département Géosciences Marines, Ifremer—Centre de Brest, Laboratoire Géochimie-Métallogénie, B.P. 70, 29280 Plouzané, France

    Dominique Birot & Vivien Guyader

  5. Dipartimento di Scienze della Terra, Università di Modena e Reggio Emilia, Lgo St. Eufemia, 19-41100 Modena, Italy

    Daniele Brunelli & Valerio Pasini

  6. Département de Géologie, Université Jean Monnet, UMR CNRS 6524, 23 rue du Docteur Paul Michelon, 42 023 Saint Etienne Cedex 2, France

    Adélie Delacour

  7. School of Earth and Ocean Sciences, Cardiff University, Main Building, Park Place, Cardiff CF10 3YE, UK

    Christopher J. MacLeod

  8. OCA-UNS-GéoAzur, UMR CNRS 7329, 250 Rue Albert Einstein, Sophia Antipolis, 06560 Valbonne, France

    Etienne Ruellan

  9. Department of Earth Sciences, Durham University, Durham DH1 3LE, UK

    Roger Searle

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  1. Daniel Sauter
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Contributions

D.S. and M.C. conceived the project and wrote the article. All authors participated in the RV Marion Dufresne MD183 cruise, and contributed to discussions, interpretation of results and manuscript writing.

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Correspondence to Daniel Sauter.

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Sauter, D., Cannat, M., Rouméjon, S. et al. Continuous exhumation of mantle-derived rocks at the Southwest Indian Ridge for 11 million years. Nature Geosci 6, 314–320 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1038/ngeo1771

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