Oceanic core complex development at the ultraslow spreading Mid‐Cayman Spreading Center

Abstract

Roughly a third of the global mid‐ocean ridge system spreads at <20 mm/yr (full rate) with predicted low crustal thicknesses, great axial depths, end‐member basalt compositions, and prominent axial faults. These predictions are here further investigated along the ultraslow (15–17 mm/yr) Mid‐Cayman Spreading Center (MCSC) through a compilation of both previously published and unpublished data. The MCSC sits along the Caribbean‐North American plate boundary and is one of the world's deepest (>6 km) spreading centers, and thought to accrete some of the thinnest (∼3 km) crust. The MCSC generates end‐member mid‐ocean ridge basalt compositions and hosts recently discovered hydrothermal vents. Multibeam bathymetric data reveal that axial depth varies along the MCSC with intraridge rift walls defined by kilometer‐scale escarpments and massifs. Dredging and near‐bottom work has imaged and sampled predominantly basaltic lavas from the greatest axial depths and ∼15% peridotite surrounded by gabbroic rocks from the prominent massifs. The gabbroic rocks exhibit wide compositional variation (troctolites to ferrogabbros) and in many places contain high‐temperature (amphibolite to granulite facies) shear zones. Gabbroic compositions primarily reflect the accumulation of near‐liquidus phases that crystallized from a range of basaltic melts, as well as from interactions with interstitial melts in a subaxial mush zone. Magnetization variations inverted from aeromagnetic data are consistent with a discontinuous distribution of basaltic lavas and structurally asymmetric spreading. These observations support an oceanic core complex model for MCSC seafloor spreading, potentially making it a type example of ultraslow seafloor spreading through mush zone and detachment fault crustal processes.