Exploring Ocean Tectonics from Space

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Reference:

Sandwell, D. T., R. D. Müller, W. H. F. Smith, E. Garcia, R. Francis, New global marine gravity model from CryoSat-2 and Jason-1 reveals buried tectonic structure, Science, Vol. 346, no. 6205, pp. 65-67, doi: 10.1126/science.1258213, 2014. Author information and acknowledgments.

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We thank Debi Kilb and Alan Yang at IGPP for their help in producing this video.

Marine gravity model of the North Atlantic (10 mGal contours). Red dots show locations of earthquakes with magnitude > 5.5 and they highlight the present-day location of the seafloor spreading ridges and transform faults. This gravity information shows the details of the plate tectonic history of the rifting of these continents including the subtle signatures of fracture zones that are currently buried by sediment.

Marine gravity model of the Central Indian Ocean (10 mGal contours). Red dots show locations of earthquakes with magnitude > 5.5 and they highlight the present-day location of the seafloor spreading ridges and transform faults. The image is centered at the Indian Ocean Triple Junction where three major tectonic plates meet (African plate – left; Indo-Australian plate – right; Antarctic plate bottom. This region of the Indian Ocean is very poorly charted and includes the search area for the Malaysian flight MH370 that was lost March 8, 2014.

Vertical gravity gradient (VGG) model of the Indian Ocean Triple Junction. The image is centered at the Indian Ocean Triple Junction where three major tectonic plates meet (African plate – left; Indo-Australian plate – right; Antarctic plate bottom.

Vertical gravity gradient (VGG) model of the Southwest Indian Ridge. This is the slowest spreading ridge on the Earth and has large fracture zone signatures that record the rifting and spreading between Africa and Antarctica.

Vertical gravity gradient (VGG) model of the southern mid-Atlantic Ridge. Earthquakes with magnitude > 5.5 are shown as green dots and highlight the current location of the spreading ridges and transform faults. The large fracture zone signatures record the rifting and spreading between South America and Africa.

In January 2014, an international team of researchers on a voyage aboard the R/V Roger Revelle in the Indian Ocean mapped a previously uncharted seamount using high-resolution sonar. The scientific expedition had just finished collecting sediment cores from the seafloor at the Ninetyeast Ridge in the Indian Ocean when the ship track on the way back to port was adjusted slightly based on the potential location of the seamount as indicated by marine gravity.