Abstract
The burial history and thermal evolution of the lithosphere within the passive nonvolcanic Antarctic margin in the region of the Mawson Sea are numerically reconstructed for the margin areas along the seismic profile 5909 with the use of the GALO basin modeling system. The amplitudes of the lithosphere stretching at the different stages of continental rifting which took place from 160 to 90 Ma ago are calculated from the geophysical estimates of the thickness of the consolidated crust and the tectonic analysis of the variations in the thickness of the sedimentary cover and sea depths during the evolution of the basin. It is hypothesized that the formation of the recent sedimentary section sequence in the studied region of the Antarctic margin began ~140 Ma ago on a basement that was thinned by a factor of 1.6 to 4.5 during the first episode of margin stretching (160–140 Ma) under a fairly high heat flux. The reconstruction of the thermal regime of the lithosphere has shown that the mantle rocks could occur within the temperature interval of serpentinization and simultaneously within the time interval of lithospheric stretching (–160 < t <–90 Ma) only within separate segments of profile 5909 in the Mawson Sea. The calculations of the rock strength distribution with depth by the example of the section of pseudowell 4 have shown that a significant part of the crust and uppermost mantle fall here in the region of brittle deformations in the most recent period of lithosphere stretching (–104 to–90 Ma ago). The younger basin segments of profile 5909 in the region of pseudowells 5 and 6 are characterized by a high heat flux, and the formation of through-thickness brittle fractures in these zones is less probable. However, serpentinization could take place in these areas as in the other margin segments at the stage of presedimentation ultra slow basement stretching.
References
Baer, A.J., Geotherms evolution of the lithosphere and plate tectonics, Tectonophysics, 1981, vol. 72, pp. 203–227.
Boillot, G. and Froitzheim, N., Non-volcanic rifted margins, continental break-up and onset of seafloor spreading: some outstanding questions, in Non-Volcanic Rifting of Continental Margins: A Composition of Evidence from Land and Sea, Wilson, R.C.L., Whitmarsh, R.B., Taylor, B., and Froitzheim, N., London: Geol. Soc., Special Publication, 2001, vol. 187, pp. 9–30.
Burov, E. and Cloetingh, S., Erosion and rift dynamics: new thermomechanical aspects of post-rift evolution of extensional basins, Earth Planet. Sci. Lett., 1997, vol. 150, pp. 7–26.
Close, D.I., Stagg, H.M.J., and O’Brien, P.E., Seismic stratigraphy and sediment distribution on the Wilkes Land and Terre Adelie margins, East Antarctica, Mar. Geol., 2007, vol. 239, pp. 33–57.
Galushkin, Yu.I. and Kutas, R.I., Dnieper–Donets paleorift: evolution of thermal regime and oil-and-gas content, Geofiz. Zh., 1995, vol.17, no.3, pp. 13–23.
Galushkin, Yu.I, Modelirovanie osadochnykh basseinov i otsenka ikh neftegazonosnosti (Sedimentary Basin Modeling and Oil-and-Gas Content Estimation), Moscow: Nauchnyi Mir, 2007.
Galushkin, Yu.I., El Maghbi, Ali, and El Gtlawi, M., Thermal regime and amplitude of lithosphere extension in the Sirte basin, Libya: numerical estimates in the plane basin modeling system, Izv., Phys. Solid Earth, 2014, vol. 50, no. 1, p. 73–86.
Galushkin, Yu.I., Non-Standard Problems in Basin Modeling, Berlin: Springer, 2016.
Gillard, M., Autin, Ju., Manatschal, G., Sauter, D., Munschy, M., and Schaming, M., Tectono-magmatic evolution of the final stages of rifting along the deep conjugate Australian–Antarctic magma-poor rifted margins: constraints from seismic observations, Tectonics, vol. 34, no. 4, 753–783.
Gupta, M.I., Sharma, S.R., Sundar, A., and Singh, S.B., Geothermal studies in the Hyderabad granitic region and the crustal thermal structure of the Southern Indian Shield, Tectonophysics, 1987, vol. 140, pp. 257–264.
Gupta, M.I., Sundar, A., and Sharma, S.R., Heat flow and heat generation in the Archaean Dharwar cratons and implications for the Southern Indian Shield geotherm and lithospheric thickness, Tectonophysics, 1991, vol. 144, pp. 107–122.
Leitchenkov, G.L., Guseva, Y.B., and Gandyukhin, V.V., Cenozoic environmental changes along the East Antarctic continental margin inferred from regional seismic stratigraphy, in Antarctica: A Keystone in a Changing World, Cooper, A.K., Barret, P.J., Stagg, H., Storey, B., Stump, E., and Wise, W., Eds., Proc. X Int. Symp. Antarctic Earth Sci. Washington: National Acad. Press., 2007. doi 10.3133/of2007-1047.spr005
Leitchenkov G.L., Guseva Y.B., Gandyukhin V.V., and Ivanov, S.V., Stroenie zemnoi kory i istoriya geologicheskogo razvitiya osadochnykh basseinov indookeanskoi akvatorii Antarktiki (Structure of the Earth Crust and Geological History of Sedimentary Basins in the Indian Ocean Territory of the Antarctica), St. Petersburg: Okeangeologia, 2015.
Makhous, M., Galushkin, Yu.I., and Lopatin N.V., Burial history and kinetic modelling for hydrocarbon generation. Part I: The GALO model, AAPG Bull, 1997, vol. 81, no. 10, pp. 1660–1678.
Makhous, M. and Galushkin, Y., Basin Analysis and Modelling of the Burial, Thermal and Maturation Histories in Sedimentary Basins, Paris: TECHNIP, 2005. McKenzie, D.P., Some remarks on the development of sedimentary basins, Earth Planet. Sci. Lett., 1978, vol. 40, pp. 25–32.
McKenzie, D., Jackson, J., and Priestley, K., Thermal structure of oceanic and continental lithosphere, Earth. Planet. Sci. Lett., 2005, vol. 233, pp. 337–339.
Negi, I.G., Panday, O.P., and Agrawal, P.K., Super-mobility of hot Indian lithosphere, Tectonophysics, 1986, vol. 131, pp. 147–156.
Newman, R. and White, N., Rheology of the continental lithosphere inferred from sedimentary basin, Nature, 1997, vol. 385, pp. 621–624.
Perez-Gussinye, M., Reston, T.J., and Phipps Morgan, J., Serpentinization and magmatism during extensions at nonvolcanic margins: the effect of initial lithospheric structure, in Non-Volcanic Rifting of Continental Margins: A Composition of Evidence from Land and Sea, Wilson, R.C.S., Whitmarsh, R.B., Taylor, B., and Froitzheim, N., Eds., London: Geol. Soc., Special Publication, 2001, vol. 187, pp. 551–576.
Ranalli, G. and Murphy, D.C., Rheological stratification of the lithosphere, Tectonophysics, 1987, vol. 132, pp. 281–295.
Reston, T., Extension discrepancy at North Atlantic nonvolcanic rifted margins: Depth-dependent stretching or unrecognized faulting?, Geology, 2007, vol. 35, no. 4, pp. 367–370.
Rüpke, L.H., Schmid, D.W., Perez-Gussinye, M., and Hartz, E., Interrelation between rifting, faulting, sedimentation, and mantle serpentinization during continental margin formation—including examples from the Norwegian Sea, Geochem., Geophys., Geosyst., 2013, vol. 14, no. 10, pp.4351–4368. doi 10.1002/ggge.20268
Wyllie, P.J., Magmas and volatile components, Am. Mineral, 1979, vol. 64, pp. 469–500.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Additional information
Original Russian Text © Yu.I. Galushkin, G.L. Leitchenkov, Yu.B. Guseva, E.P. Dubinin, 2018, published in Fizika Zemli, 2018, No. 1, pp. 83–95.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Galushkin, Y.I., Leitchenkov, G.L., Guseva, Y.B. et al. The stretching amplitude and thermal regime of the lithosphere in the nonvolcanic passive margin of Antarctica in the Mawson Sea region. Izv., Phys. Solid Earth 54, 79–90 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1134/S106935131801007X
Received:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1134/S106935131801007X