Gravity and structure of the continental margins of southwestern Mexico and northwestern Guatemala

Abstract

Geophysical measurements over the eastern end of the Tehuantepec Ridge and adjacent continental margins of southern Mexico and northern Guatemala indicate that the ridge is a fracture zone and that it marks the boundary between two different subduction provinces. A positive free‐air gravity anomaly which extends northwestward along the outer continental shelf of Guatemala curves abruptly landward in the Gulf of Tehuantepec. The positive shelf anomaly is on trend with the positive anomaly of the Nicoya Peninsula, Costa Rica, and suggests that rocks genetically related to Cretaceous rocks of the Nicoya Complex extend northwestward along the continental shelf to the Gulf of Tehuantepec. A crustal and subcrustal cross section of the continental margin of Guatemala, constrained by gravity, magnetic, and seismic refraction data, indicates that the rock strata causing the outer shelf gravity high dip landward, consistent with imbricate thrusting of the oceanic crust beneath and into the continental margin. A model crustal cross section of the continental margin of southern Mexico, north of the Tehuantepec Ridge, shows a markedly different margin structure with a relatively small amount of continental accretion and a continental crustal block extending to within approximately 25 km of the trench axis.