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The Mediterranean Sea: A Laboratory to Characterize Micro-Continental Drift and Oceanic Basin Formation Processes

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Geology of North Africa and the Mediterranean: Sedimentary Basins and Georesources

Part of the book series: Regional Geology Reviews ((RGR))

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Abstract

The sequence of processes that lead to the genesis of passive margins and their associated oceanic basins remains debated. Following the continental rifting and prior to the establishment of a homogeneous and stable oceanic crust that characterize oceanic drifting, crustal thinning and the exhumation of lower continental crust together with astenospheric mantle appear to be omnipresent in the formation of an intermediate continent-ocean transitional domain. These processes have major consequences on the thermal and tectonic evolution of the margin, as well as on the geodynamic paleo-reconstructions. In the Mediterranean Sea, numerous sub-basins of very diverse ages, crustal nature, formation mechanisms, and geodynamic evolution are observed. In two areas, the Levantine Basin and the Algerian Basin, on either side of the Strait of Sicily, respectively in the old Eastern Mediterranean sea and in the younger Western Mediterranean sea, the nature and geometry of the different segments of the Earth's crust, their boundaries and links, their geodynamical evolution remain controversial and are connected with the presence and evolution of micro-continental blocks, respectively the Eratosthenes block and the AlKaPeCa group. Wide-angle seismic imaging of continental margins and adjacent oceanic basins has proven as a powerful mean to elucidate these controversies. Hence, we propose to conduct wide-angle and streamer seismic surveys along 7 profiles at the Levant and Cyprus margins (onshore-offshore with 106 deployments of ocean bottom seismometers, 15 short-period seismometers in Lebanon and 6 in Cyprus), and along 5 profiles (offshore with 171 deployments of ocean bottom seismometers) in Algerian Basin. The first experiment aims to establish whether the Levant margin is a transform margin in the direct connection with Neo-Tethys, or a conjugate normal margin of the micro-continental block of Eratosthenes. The second surveys aims to constrain the kinematic evolution (North–South versus East–West extension), the crustal nature (oceanic versus thinned continental) and the geodynamical process (slab rollback- versus continental delimination-driven) of the Algerian Basin. Both surveys are targeted to characterize, in two basins of very different age, the active processes during rifting, the formation of the ocean-continent transition, the nature and geometry of the different segments, and the geodynamic active forces, in areas where few wide-angle seismic has been acquired in the past, and then, by placing this new information in a geodynamic context, to better constrain the kinematic history of the Mediterranean Sea.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Geo-Ocean, University of Brest, CNRS, Ifremer, UMR6538, F-29280, Plouzane, France

    Daniel Aslanian, Philippe Schnürle, Maryline Moulin, Mikael Evain, Romain Pellen & Marina Rabineau

  2. Instituto Dom Luis, Lisboa, Faculdade das Ciencias da Universidade de Lisboa, Lisboa, Portugal

    Alexandra Afilhado & Nuno Dias

  3. Instituto Superior de Engenharia de Lisboa, Lisboa, Portugal

    Alexandra Afilhado & Nuno Dias

  4. Laboratoire Cogitamus, IUEM, Place Nicolas Copernic, 29280, Plouzané, France

    Camille Noûs

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  2. Direction Geologie-Geochimie-Geophysique, Institut Francais du Petrole, Rueil Malmaison Cedex, France

    Francois Roure

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Aslanian, D. et al. (2023). The Mediterranean Sea: A Laboratory to Characterize Micro-Continental Drift and Oceanic Basin Formation Processes. In: Khomsi, S., Roure, F. (eds) Geology of North Africa and the Mediterranean: Sedimentary Basins and Georesources. Regional Geology Reviews. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-18747-6_1

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