The RAMESSES experiment-II. Evidence for accumulated melt beneath a slow spreading ridge from wide-angle refraction and multichannel reflection seismic profiles

Abstract

The RAMESSES study (Reykjanes Axial Melt Experiment: Structural Synthesis from Electromagnetics and Seismics) targeted an apparently magmatically active axial volcanic ridge (AVR), centred on 57°45′N at the Reykjanes Ridge, with the aim of investigating the processes of crustal accretion at a slow spreading mid-ocean ridge. As part of this multicomponent experiment, airgun and explosive wide-angle seismic data were recorded by 10 digital ocean-bottom seismometers (OBSs) along profiles oriented both across- and along-axis. Coincident normal-incidence seismic, bathymetry and underway gravity and magnetic data were also collected. Forward modelling of the seismic and gravity data has revealed layer thicknesses, velocities and densities similar to those observed elsewhere within the oceanic crust near mid-ocean ridges. At 57°45′N, the Reykjanes Ridge has a crustal thickness of approximately 7.5 km on-axis. However, the crust is modelled to decrease in thickness slightly off-axis (i.e. with age), which implies that full crustal thickness is achieved on-axis and that it is subsequently thinned, most likely, by off-axis extension. Modelling also indicates that the AVR is underlain by a thin (∼100 m), narrow (∼4 km) melt lens some 2.5 km beneath the seafloor, which overlies a broader zone of partial melt approximately 8 km in width. Thus the results of this study provide the first clear evidence for a crustal magma chamber beneath any slow spreading ridge. The size and depth of this magma chamber (the melt lens and underlying zone of partial melt) are similar to those observed beneath fast and intermediate spreading ridges, which implies that the processes of crustal accretion are similar at all spreading rates. Hence the lack of previous observations of magma chambers beneath slow spreading ridges is probably temporally related to the periods of magmatic activity being considerably shorter and more widely spaced in time than at fast and intermediate spreading ridges.