From pull-apart basins to ultraslow spreading: Results from the western Barents Sea Margin

Abstract

This paper describes results from a geophysical study in the area between the ultraslow Knipovich Ridge and Bear Island, western Barents Sea. The objective was to map the crustal structure along a profile crossing a pull-apart rifted continental margin and oceanic crust generated by ultraslow spreading. The results are based on modeling of wide-angle seismic and gravity data, together with interpretation of multichannel reflection data. Our results show a two layered oceanic crust in the western part of the profile. The thickness of the oceanic crust is variable in the western 130 km, ranging from 3.5 to 5.5 km. East of km 130 the crustal thickness is relatively constant, with values close to the global average for oceanic crust. The oceanic crust is buried by a thick package of Cenozoic sedimentary rocks. The continent–ocean transition (COT) is placed in the interval 207–255 km, between unequivocal oceanic crust and the foot of the westernmost fault in the Hornsund Fault Zone. It is not possible to conclude whether this interval is oceanic crust or thinned and intruded continental crust, but we favor the latter interpretation, at least for the eastern part of the COT. Stretched continental crust is observed between Hornsund Fault Zone and the Knølegga Fault. Here the sedimentary rocks have high velocities and are interpreted to be mainly of Mesozoic and Late Paleozoic age. In this interval Moho depths increase abruptly from 15 km in the west to 27 km in the east. Crystalline basement velocities are observed close to the seafloor east of the Knølegga Fault. We suggest that continental breakup north of Greenland–Senja Fracture Zone occurred around 33 Ma, after a period of pull-apart tectonics. The spreading rate of the earliest seafloor spreading may have been higher than the present day spreading, creating thicker oceanic crust close to the COT.