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- Deep structure of the Santos basin-São Paulo plateau system, SE BrazilPublication . Evain, M.; Afilhado, Alexandra; Rigoti, C.; Loureiro, A.; Alves, D.; Klingelhoefer, Frauke; Schnurle, Philippe; Feld, Aurelie; Fuck, R; Soares, J.; Lima, M. Vinicius de; Corela, C.; Matias, Luís; Benabdellouahed, M.; Baltzer, A.; Rabineau, Marina; Viana, A.; Moulin, Maryline; Aslanian, DanielThe structure and nature of the crust underlying the Santos Basin-São Paulo Plateau System (SSPS), in the SE Brazilian margin, are discussed based on five wide-angle seismic profiles acquired during the Santos Basin (SanBa) experiment in 2011. Velocity models allow us to precisely divide the SSPS in six domains from unthinned continental crust (Domain CC) to normal oceanic crust (Domain OC). A seventh domain (Domain D), a triangular shape region in the SE of the SSPS, is discussed by Klingelhoefer et al. (2014). Beneath the continental shelf, a similar to 100km wide necking zone (Domain N) is imaged where the continental crust thins abruptly from similar to 40km to less than 15km. Toward the ocean, most of the SSPS (Domains A and C) shows velocity ranges, velocity gradients, and a Moho interface characteristic of the thinned continental crust. The central domain (Domain B) has, however, a very heterogeneous structure. While its southwestern part still exhibits extremely thinned (7km) continental crust, its northeastern part depicts a 2-4km thick upper layer (6.0-6.5km/s) overlying an anomalous velocity layer (7.0-7.8km/s) and no evidence of a Moho interface. This structure is interpreted as atypical oceanic crust, exhumed lower crust, or upper continental crust intruded by mafic material, overlying either altered mantle in the first two cases or intruded lower continental crust in the last case. The deep structure and v-shaped segmentation of the SSPS confirm that an initial episode of rifting occurred there obliquely to the general opening direction of the South Atlantic Central Segment.
- Imaging exhumed lower continental crust in the distal Jequitinhonha basin, BrazilPublication . Loureiro, Afonso; Schnürle, P.; Klingelhoefer, Frauke; Afilhado, Alexandra; Pinheiro, J.; Evain, Mikael; Gallais, F.; Dias, Nuno; Rabineau, Marina; Baltzer, A.; Benabdellouahed, M.; Soares, J.; Fuck, R.; Cupertino, J. A.; Viana, Adriano Roessler; Matias, Luis; Moulin, Maryline; Aslanian, D.; Morvan, L.; Mazé, J. P.; Pierre, D.; Roudaut-Pitel, M.; Rio, I.; Alves, D.; Júnior, P. Barros; Biari, Youssef; Corela, C.; Crozon, J.; Duarte, J. L.; Ducatel, C.; Falcão, C.; Fernagu, P.; Lima, M. Vinicius Aparecido Gomes de; Piver, D. Le; Mokeddem, Z.; Pelleau, P.; Rigoti, C.; Roest, W.; Roudaut, M.Twelve combined wide-angle refraction and coincident multi-channel seismic profiles were acquired in the Jequitinhonha-Camamu-Almada, Jacuípe, and Sergipe-Alagoas basins, NE Brazil, during the SALSA experiment in 2014. Profiles SL11 and SL12 image the Jequitinhonha basin, perpendicularly to the coast, with 15 and 11 four-channel ocean-bottom seismometers, respectively. Profile SL10 runs parallel to the coast, crossing profiles SL11 and SL12, imaging the proximal Jequitinhonha and Almada basins with 17 ocean-bottom seismometers. Forward modelling, combined with pre-stack depth migration to increase the horizontal resolution of the velocity models, indicates that sediment thickness varies between 3.3 km and 6.2 km in the distal basin. Crustal thickness at the western edge of the profiles is of around 20 km, with velocity gradients indicating a continental origin. It decreases to less than 5 km in the distal basin, with high seismic velocities and gradients, not compatible with normal oceanic crust nor exhumed upper mantle. Typical oceanic crust is never imaged along these about 200 km-long profiles and we propose that the transitional crust in the Jequitinhonha basin is a made of exhumed lower continental crust.
- Deep crustal structure across a young passive margin from wide-angle and reflection seismic data (The SARDINIA Experiment) - I. Gulf of Lion's marginPublication . Moulin, Maryline; Klingelhoefer, Frauke; Afilhado, Alexandra; Aslanian, Daniel; Schnurle, Philippe; Nouze, Herve; Rabineau, Marina; Beslier, Marie-Odile; Feld, AurelieThe conjugate margins system of the Gulf of Lion and West Sardinia (GLWS) represents a unique natural laboratory for addressing fundamental questions about rifting due to its landlocked situation, its youth, its thick sedimentary layers, including prominent palaeo-marker such as the MSC event, and the amount of available data and multidisciplinary studies. The main goals of the SARDINIA experiment, were to (i) investigate the deep structure of the entire system within the two conjugate margins: the Gulf of Lion and West Sardinia, (ii) characterize the nature of the crust, and (iii) define the geometry of the basin and provide important constrains on its genesis. This paper presents the results of P-wave velocity modelling on three coincident near-vertical reflection multi-channel seismic (MCS) and wide-angle seismic profiles acquired in the Gulf of Lion, to a depth of 35 km. A companion paper [part II Afilhado et al., 2015] addresses the results of two other SARDINIA profiles located on the oriental conjugate West Sardinian margin. Forward wide-angle modelling of both data sets confirms that the margin is characterised by three distinct domains following the onshore unthinned, 33 km-thick continental crust domain: Domain I is bounded by two necking zones, where the crust thins respectively from 30 to 20 and from 20 to 7 km over a width of about 170 km; the outermost necking is imprinted by the well-known T-reflector at its crustal base; Domain II is characterised by a 7 km-thick crust with anomalous velocities ranging from 6 to 7.5 km/s; it represents the transition between the thinned continental crust (Domain I) and a very thin (only 4-5 km) "atypical" oceanic crust (Domain III). In Domain II, the hypothesis of the presence of exhumed mantle is falsified by our results: this domain may likely consist of a thin exhumed lower continental crust overlying a heterogeneous, intruded lower layer. Moreover, despite the difference in their magnetic signatures, Domains II and III present the very similar seismic velocities profiles, and we discuss the possibility of a connection between these two different domains.
- Deep crustal structure across a young passive margin from wide-angle and reflection seismic data (The SARDINIA Experiment) - II. Sardinia's marginPublication . Afilhado, Alexandra; Moulin, Maryline; Aslanian, Daniel; Schnurle, Philippe; Klingelhoefer, Frauke; Nouze, Herve; Rabineau, Marina; Leroux, Estelle; Beslier, Marie-OdileGeophysical data acquired on the conjugate margins system of the Gulf of Lion and West Sardinia (GLWS) is unique in its ability to address fundamental questions about rifting (i.e. crustal thinning, the nature of the continent-ocean transition zone, the style of rifting and subsequent evolution, and the connection between deep and surface processes). While the Gulf of Lion (GoL) was the site of several deep seismic experiments, which occurred before the SARDINIA Experiment (ESP and ECORS Experiments in 1981 and 1988 respectively), the crustal structure of the West Sardinia margin remains unknown. This paper describes the first modeling of wide-angle and near-vertical reflection multi-channel seismic (MCS) profiles crossing the West Sardinia margin, in the Mediterranean Sea. The profiles were acquired, together with the exact conjugate of the profiles crossing the GoL, during the SARDINIA experiment in December 2006 with the French R/V L'Atalante. Forward wide-angle modeling of both data sets (wide-angle and multi-channel seismic) confirms that the margin is characterized by three distinct domains following the onshore unthinned, 26 km-thick continental crust : Domain V, where the crust thins from 26 to 6 km in a width of about 75 km; Domain IV where the basement is characterized by high velocity gradients and lower crustal seismic velocities from 6.8 to 7.25 km/s, which are atypical for either crustal or upper mantle material, and Domain III composed of "atypical" oceanic crust.The structure observed on the West Sardinian margin presents a distribution of seismic velocities that is symmetrical with those observed on the Gulf of Lion's side, except for the dimension of each domain and with respect to the initiation of seafloor spreading. This result does not support the hypothesis of simple shear mechanism operating along a lithospheric detachment during the formation of the Liguro-Provencal basin.
- Lithospheric structuration onshore-offshore of the Sergipe-Alagoas passive margin, NE Brazil, based on wide-angle seismic dataPublication . Pinheiro, J. M.; Schnurle, P.; Evain, Mikael; Afilhado, Alexandra; Gallais, F.; Klingelhoefer, Frauke; Loureiro, Afonso; Fuck, R.; Soares, J.; Cupertino, J. A.; Viana, Adriano Roessler; Rabineau, Marina; Baltzer, A.; Benabdellouahed, M.; Dias, Nuno; Moulin, Maryline; Aslani, D.; Morvan, L.; Maze, J. P.; Pierre, D.; Roudaut-Pitel, M.; Rio, I.; Alves, D.; Barros, P.; Biari, Youssef; Corela, Carlos; Crozon, J.; Duarte, J. L.; Ducatel, C.; Falcão, C.; Fernagu, P.; Le Piver, D.; Mokeddem, Z.; Pelleau, P.; Rigoti, C.; Roest, W.; Roudaut, M.The structure and nature of the crust underlying the Camamu-Almada-Jequitinhonha-Sergipe-Alagoas basins System, in the NE Brazilian margin, were investigated based on the interpretation of 12 wide-angle seismic profiles acquired during the SALSA (Sergipe ALagoas Seismic Acquisition) experiment in 2014. In this work, we present two 220-km-long NW-SE combined wide-angle and reflection seismic profiles, SL 01 and SL 02, that have been acquired using 15 ocean-bottom-seismometers along each profile, offshore the southern part of the Sergipe Alagoas Basin (SAB), north of the Vaza-Barris Transfer zone. The SL 02 has a 150-km long inland continuation with 20 land-seismic-stations until the Sergipano Fold Belt (SFB). Wide-angle seismic forward modeling allows us to precisely divide the crust in three domains: beneath the continental shelf, a similar to 100 km wide necking zone is imaged where the continental crust thins from similar to 35 km on the Unthinned Continental Domain, which displays a three-layered crust structure, to less than 8 km on the Oceanic Crust Domain. In the necking zone, the upper and the middle layers thin dramatically and almost disappear, while the Moho discontinuity shows clear PmPs. The Continental-Oceanic Crust Boundary (COB) is located at similar to 80 km from the coastline and is marked by intracrustal seismic reflectors and changes in the seismic velocity, showing a sharp transition. On profile SL02, the oceanic crust is perturbed by a volcanic edifice together with an anomalous velocity zone underneath the area.