Lithospheric response to volcanic loading in the Southern Cook Islands

Abstract

The response of the ocean lithosphere to volcanic island loading has been investigated for the Southern Cook Islands of Rarotonga, Mangaia and the Aitutaki-Mauke group using (1) estimates of the change—with distance from the load—of uplift of islands located on the flexure-created arch, (2) geoid height perturbations as observed with the GEOS 3 and SEASAT radar altimeters, and (3) bathymetric evidence for the moat and arch about the island loads. The effective flexural rigidity for Rarotonga is found to be higher than for the older and nearby islands of Mangaia and Aitutaki. This, together with an earlier result for Tahiti [1], suggests that stress relaxation of the lithosphere has occurred and that this layer behaves as a viscoelastic material with an effective viscosity of about 5–10×10 25 poise. The observations for the flexural rigidity do not indicate any dependence on the age of the lithosphere at the time the loading occurred. This suggests that there are no significant differences in lithospheric properties for plates in the age range of 6–7×10 7 years. Altimeter passes to the east of Mauke indicate that there may be an uncharted submarine extension of the Aitutaki-Mauke chain.