Gravity anomalies and the origin of the Puerto Rico Trench

Abstract

The Puerto Rico Trench is assumed to be caused by a downwards bending of the Atlantic lithosphere. The gravitational body force that acts on a flap of lithosphere, hanging in the aesthenosphere and more dense than it, pulls the lithosphere down at the trench. Gravity anomalies are modelled assuming that the crustal thicknesses of the Atlantic and Caribbean Oceans are constant (but different) and that the Atlantic Ocean floor seaward of the outer rise, Puerto Rico, and the Caribbean Sea floor are each in isostatic equlibrium. The residual gravity anomalies are then consistent with the existence of a subcrustal dense mass, that could be the hanging slab of lithosphere. The value of this excess mass depends upon more arbitrary assumptions for the crustal mass in the Puerto Rico Trench and its landward wall, but if the other assumptions above are realistic, the dense mass is required and is adequate to bend the surface down at the trench.