DILEK, Y., MOORES, E., ELTHON, D. & NICOLAS, A. (eds) 2000. Ophiolites and Oceanic Crust: New Insights from Field Studies and the Ocean Drilling Program. Proceedings of the Penrose Conference held in Marshall, California, 13–17 September 1998. Geological Society of America Special Paper no. 349. viii+552 pp. Boulder: Geological Society of America. Price US $104.00 (members), US $130.00 (non-members); paperback.

Abstract

Thirty years ago, at the first Penrose conference on ophiolites in 1972, ophiolite complexes were first compared to sections of the oceanic crust and upper mantle. It is astonishing to think of the progress made since then. Particularly impressive is the interaction between field structural geologists and igneous petrologists studying ophiolites in the field, with marine geologists and geophysicists. The recent deep drilling of the lower oceanic crust and upper mantle at the Hess Deep, the Mid-Atlantic Ridge and the Southwest Indian Ridge has allowed a much closer comparison to the plutonic complexes of ophiolites. Ocean drilling, however, will never allow the very detailed three-dimensional view of the oceanic crust and upper mantle provided by on-land ophiolites. It is only in these well exposed and complete ophiolites, such as the Oman, where some tectonic processes will …