Hotspot volcanism along a leaky fracture zone contributes the formation of the 85°E Ridge at 11°N latitude, Bay of Bengal

Abstract

The 85°E Ridge is a prominent linear structure in the northeastern Indian Ocean. Its nature and origin are still controversial due to the coverage of thick Bengal Fan sediments. Here we present a newly collected 400-km-long 2-D seismic reflection profile which crosses the 85°E Ridge near 11°N and shows the basement morphology and internal structures of the ridge. The ridge has a thickened crust characterized by two basement highs rising up to ~2–3 km above the surrounding oceanic crust and a Moho depression with amplitude of ~3–4 km. Typical volcanic structures formed by hotspot volcanism are identified in the ridge. Deep-rooted faults played important roles in the formation of the 85°E Ridge. They acted as the preferred conduit for the upwelling of hotspot melts, but their syn- and post-volcanic reactivations induced the collapse of volcanic sequences and the relative uplift of the East Ridge. These observations support that the 85°E Ridge near 11°N having formed by hotspot magmatism drained along a leaky fracture zone. Combined with previous results, a new single-hotspot formation model of the 85°E Ridge is proposed, in which the entire 85°E Ridge was formed by a weak and pulsating mantle plume acting on the northward drifting Indian Plate. Its along-strike variations in location, morphology, and structure in different segments are interpreted to reflect different elastic strength of the oceanic lithosphere and the existence of a pre-existing fracture zone which laterally redistributed the shallow melts.