John A. Goff

Segmentation and crustal structure of the western Mid‐Atlantic Ridge flank, 25°25′–27°10′N and 0–29 m.y.

We conducted a detailed geological-geophysical survey of the west flank of the Mid-Atlantic Ridge between 25°25′N and 27°10′N and from the ridge axis out to 29 Ma crust, acquiring Hydrosweep multibeam bathymetry, HAWAII MR1 sidescan-sonar imagery, gravity, magnetics, and single-channel seismic reflection profiles. The survey covered all or part of nine spreading segments bounded by mostly nontransform, right-stepping discontinuities which are subparallel to flow lines but which migrated independently of one another. Some discontinuities alternated between small right- and left-stepping offsets or exhibited zero offset for up to 3–4 m.y. Despite these changes, the spreading segments have been long-lived and extend 20 m.y. or more across isochrons. A large shift (∼9°) in relative plate motion about 24–22 Ma caused significant changes in segmentation pattern. The nature of this plate-boundary response, together with the persistence of segments through periods of zero offset at their bounding discontinuities, suggest that the position and longevity of segments are controlled primarily by the subaxial position of buoyant mantle diapirs or focused zones of rising melt. Within segments, there are distinct differences in seafloor depth, morphology, residual mantle Bouguer gravity anomaly, and apparent crustal thickness between inside-corner and outside-corner crust. This demands fundamentally asymmetric crustal accretion and extension across the ridge axis, which we attribute to low-angle, detachment faulting near segment ends. Cyclic variations in residual gravity over the crossisochron run of segments also suggest crustal-thickness changes of at least 1–2 km every 2–3 m.y. These are interpreted to be caused by episodes of magmatic versus relatively amagmatic extension, controlled by retention and quasiperiodic release of melt from the upwelling mantle. Detachment faulting appears to be especially effective in exhuming lower crust to upper mantle at inside corners during relatively amagmatic episodes, creating crustal domes analogous to “turtleback” metamorphic core complexes that are formed by low-angle, detachment faulting in subaerial extensional environments.

A global and regional stochastic analysis of near‐ridge Abyssal Hill morphology

This paper presents the results of a global and regional stochastic analysis of near-ridge abyssal hill morphology. The analysis includes the use of Sea Beam data for the estimation of stochastic parameters up to order 4. These parameters provide important quantitative physical information regarding abyssal hills, including their rms height, azimuthal orientation, characteristic width, aspect ratio, Hausdorff dimension, skewness, tilt, and peakiness. The global data set consists of 64 Sea Beam swaths near the Rivera, Cocos, and Nazca spreading sections of the East Pacific Rise, the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, and the Central Indian Ridge. In one form of analysis, the parameters are averaged among spreading rate bins. Each of the spreading rate subsets can be identified as unique from the others in at least one aspect The slowest spreading rate subset (Mid-Atlantic data) exhibit the largest scales (rms height and characteristic width and length) of abyssal hills. These parameters generally decrease as spreading rate increases up to the fast spreading rate data (Pacific-Cocos) but increase going from fast to very fast (Pacific-Nazca) spreading rate data. This indicates some complexity in the relationship between spreading rate and abyssal hill morphology. The plan view aspect ratio is nearly twice as large for the fast spreading rate data than for any of the other subsets and is smallest for the very fast spreading rate data. The fractal dimension is nearly identical for all spreading rate subsets. The vertical skewness is positive for the slow and medium spreading rate data, indicating larger peaks than troughs, and negative for the fast spreading rate data, indicating larger troughs than peaks. The kurtosis, or peakiness is everywhere larger than the Gaussian value of 3 and tends to be larger in the Atlantic than the Pacific. The tilting parameter provides substantial evidence indicating steeper inward facing slopes in the medium and fast spreading rate data, but only marginal evidence for it in the slow spreading rate data. From an analysis of correlations among parameters it is found that subsets sometimes behave differently from the entire data set. In particular, while over the global data set the characteristic width exhibits a well-resolved positive trend when plotted versus rms height, these parameters exhibit a more gradual positive trend in the Mid-Atlantic data and a negative trend in the Pacific-Cocos data. In addition, the plan view aspect ratio, while generally uncorrelated with rms height for the global data set, is positively correlated with rms height for the Pacific-Cocos data set. These results emphasize a strong uniqueness of the Pacific-Cocos data relative to the rest of the data global set The Pacific-Cocos data consist of 27 swaths concentrated between the Siquieros and Orozco fracture zones. These data provide very good abyssal hill coverage of this well-mapped and well-studied region and form the basis of a regional analysis of the correlation between ridge morphology and stochastic abyssal hill parameters. In this analysis, it is found that abyssal hill parameters are correlated with the depth of the adjacent ridge axis, indicating that the relative abundance in magma supply, which likely controls the ridge axis depth, may also be an important influence on the formation of abyssal hills.

Potential for large-scale submarine slope failure and tsunami generation along the U.S. mid-Atlantic coast

The outer continental shelf off southern Virginia and North Carolina might be in the initial stages of large-scale slope failure. A system of en echelon cracks, resembling small-offset normal faults, has been discovered along the outer shelf edge. Swath bathymetric data indicate that about 50 m of down-to-the-east (basinward) normal slip has occurred on these features. From a societal perspective, we need to evaluate the degree of tsunami hazard that might be posed by a major submarine landslide, such as the nearby late Pleistocene Albemarle-Currituck slide, if it nucleated on the newly discovered crack system. Toward this goal, a tsunami scenario is constructed for the nearby coastal zone based on the estimated volume and nature of the potential slide. Although a maximum tsunami height of a few to several meters is predicted, the actual extent of flooding would depend on the tidal state at the time of tsunami arrival as well as the details of the hinterland topography. The Virginia–North Carolina coastline and lower Chesapeake Bay would be most at risk, being nearby, low lying, and in a direction opposite to potential slide motion.

HIGH-RESOLUTION SWATH SONAR INVESTIGATION OF SAND RIDGE, DUNE AND RIBBON MORPHOLOGY IN THE OFFSHORE ENVIRONMENT OF THE NEW JERSEY MARGIN

Abstract Sand ridges on the northeast US Atlantic shelf form in the near-shore environment, most likely in response to storm-driven flows. As the Holocene transgression has continued, the ridges have been transferred to an offshore hydrodynamic regime, where currents are not constrained by the coast and storms do not influence bottom currents as frequently or as strongly. Here, we qualitatively and quantitatively investigate the morphology of offshore sand ridges and smaller-scale features in an effort to place constraints on bedform development in these deeper waters. A recent high-resolution swath sonar survey mapped a portion of the New Jersey shelf from ∼20 m water depth to the shelf break (∼120 m), imaging both sand ridges and smaller-scaled dunes and ribbons in far greater detail than has been previously possible. Using a robust statistical analysis, we find that the gross morphology of ridges (height, width, length) does not change with depth beyond ∼20 m water depth, and changes in ridge orientation generally mirror changes in regional contour orientation. Hence, ridges have not continued to grow since transgression has brought them into the offshore hydrodynamic regime. However, on the inner shelf (∼20 m water depth to the Mid-Shelf shore), we do find evidence in the ridge shape, which has an asymmetry opposite to that seen near shore, and in the complex backscatter response that some important modifications to ridges are taking place at these water depths. In contrast, on the mid-shelf (from the Mid-Shelf shore to the Franklin shore), ridges tend to have higher backscatter at the crests, implying that these are largely winnowed, relict features. Lineated, smaller-scale (∼100–500 m wavelength,

Tracking the last sea-level cycle: seafloor morphology and shallow stratigraphy of the latest Quaternary New Jersey middle continental shelf

Seafloor geomorphology and surficial stratigraphy of the New Jersey middle continental shelf provide a detailed record of sea-level change during the last advance and retreat of the Laurentide ice sheet (∽120 kyr B.P. to Present). A NW–SE-oriented corridor on the middle shelf between water depths of ∼40 m (the mid-shelf “paleo-shore”) and ∼100 m (the Franklin “paleo-shore”) encompasses ∼500 line-km of 2D Huntec boomer profiles (500–3500 Hz), an embedded 4.6 km2 3D volume, and a 490 km2 swath bathymetry map. We use these data to develop a relative stratigraphy. Core samples from published studies also provide some chronological and sedimentological constraints on the upper <5 m of the stratigraphic succession. The following stratigraphic units and surfaces occur (from bottom to top): (1) “R”, a high-amplitude reflection that separates sediment >∼46.5 kyr old (by AMS 14C dating) from overlying sediment wedges; (2) the outer shelf wedge, a marine unit up to ∼50 m thick that onlaps “R”; (3) “Channels”, a reflection sub-parallel to the seafloor that incises “R”, and appears as a dendritic system of channels in map view; (4) “Channels” fill, the upper portion of which is sampled and known to represent deepening-upward marine sediments ∼12.3 kyr in age; (5) the “T” horizon, a seismically discontinuous surface that caps “Channels” fill; (6) oblique ridge deposits, coarse-grained shelly units comprised of km-scale, shallow shelf bedforms; and (7) ribbon-floored swales, bathymetric depressions parallel to modern shelf currents that truncate the oblique ridges and cut into surficial deposits. We interpret this succession of features in light of a global eustatic sea-level curve and the consequent migration of the coastline across the middle shelf during the last ∼120 kyr. The morphology of the New Jersey middle shelf shows a discrete sequence of stratigraphic elements, and reflects the pulsed episodicity of the last sea-level cycle. “R” is a complicated marine/non-marine erosional surface formed during the last regression, while the outer shelf wedge represents a shelf wedge emplaced during a minor glacial retreat before maximum Wisconsin lowstand (i.e., marine oxygen isotope stage 3.1). “Channels” is a widespread fluvial subarial erosion surface formed at the late Wisconsin glacial maximum ∼22 kyr B.P. The shoreline migrated back across the mid-shelf corridor non-uniformly during the period represented by “Channels” fill. Oblique ridges are relict features on the New Jersey middle shelf, while the ribbon-floored swales represent modern shelf erosion. There is no systematic relationship between modern seafloor morphology and the very shallowly buried stratigraphic succession.

Stochastic analysis of seafloor morphology on the flank of the Southeast Indian Ridge: The influence of ridge morphology on the formation of abyssal hills

In this study we estimate the statistical properties of abyssal hill morphology adjacent to the Southeast Indian Ridge in a region where the axial morphology changes from axial high to axial valley without a corresponding change in spreading rate. We explore the influence of axial morphology on abyssal hills and place these results within the context of response to spreading rate. Two cruises aboard the R/V Melville collected Sea Beam 2000 multibeam data along the Southeast Indian Ridge, providing continuous multibeam coverage of the axis from ∼89°W to ∼118°W, and ∼100% coverage within four survey regions extending out to ∼45 km (∼1.2 Ma) from the axis [Sempere et al., 1997; Cochran et al., 1997]. We apply the statistical modeling method of Goff and Jordan [1988] to gridded data from the four survey areas, examining in particular estimates of abyssal hill rms height, characteristic width and length, aspect ratio, and skewness. Two analyses are performed: (1) comparison of the along-axis variation in abyssal hill characteristics to ridge segmentation, and (2) a calculation of population statistics within axial high, intermediate, and axial valley data populations of this study, and comparison of these results to population statistics derived from studies adjacent to the Mid-Atlantic Ridge and East Pacific Rise. We find that abyssal hills generated along axial high mid-ocean ridges are very different from those generated along axial valley mid-ocean ridges, not only with respect to size and shape, but also in their response to such factors as spreading rate and segmentation.

Modal fields: A new method for characterization of random seismic velocity heterogeneity

Geologically and petrophysically constrained synthetic random velocity fields are important tools for exploring (through the application of numerical codes) the seismic response of small-scale lithospheric heterogeneities. Statistical and geophysical analysis of mid- and lower-crustal exposures has demonstrated that the probability density function for some seismic velocity fields is likely to be discrete rather than continuous. We apply the term “modal” fields to describe fields of this sort. This letter details a methodology for generating synthetic modal fields which satisfy the von Karman covariance function. In addition, we explore some of the mathematics of “modality”, and define a modality parameter which quantifies the variation between end members binary and continuous fields.

Stochastic modeling of the reflective lower crust: Petrophysical and geological evidence from the Ivera Zone (northern Italy)

A method for the attainment of enhanced enantioselectivity in the reduction of 3-acyl derivatives of 1-(2-alkoxyethyl)-4-phenyl-imidazolin-2-ones to the optically active 3-acyl derivatives of 1-(2-alkoxyethyl)-4-phenyl-2-imidazolidones for use in the direct manufacture of levamisole, (-), 2, 3, 5, 6-tetrahydro-6-phenylimidazo-[2,1-b]-thiazole, useful as an anthelmintic has been discovered. The method involves the preferred use of iodide salts of Rh(I) complexes of optically active bis-tertiary phosphines to achieve maximum enantioselectivity. The methods for preparing the iodide salts are disclosed.

Nature and origin of upper crustal seismic velocity fluctuations and associated scaling properties: Combined stochastic analyses of KTB velocity and lithology logs

The main borehole of the German Continental Deep Drilling Program (KTB) extends over 9000 m into a crystalline upper crust consisting primarily of interlayered gneiss and metabasite. We present a joint analysis of the velocity and lithology logs in an effort to extract the lithology component of the velocity log. Covariance analysis of lithology log, approximated as a binary series, indicates that it may originate from the superposition of two Brownian stochastic processes (fractal dimension 1.5) with characteristic scales of ∼2800 m and ∼150 m, respectively. Covariance analysis of the velocity fluctuations provides evidence for the superposition of four stochastic process with distinct characteristic scales. The largest two scales are identical to those derived from the lithology, confirming that these scales of velocity heterogeneity are caused by lithology variations. The third characteristic scale, ∼20 m, also a Brownian process, is probably related to fracturing based on correlation with the resistivity log. The superposition of these three Brownian processes closely mimics the commonly observed 1/k decay (fractal dimension 2.0) of the velocity power spectrum. The smallest scale process (characteristic scale ∼1.7 m) requires a low fractal dimension, ∼1.0, and accounts for ∼60% of the total rms velocity variation. A comparison of successive logs from 6900–7140 m depth indicates that such variations are not repeatable and thus probably do not represent true velocity variations in the crust. The results of this study resolve disparity between the differing published estimates of seismic heterogeneity based on the KTB sonic logs, and bridge the gap between estimates of crustal heterogeneity from geologic maps and borehole logs.

Acoustic backscatter of the 1995 flood deposit on the Eel shelf

Abstract Acoustic swath mapping and sediment box coring conducted on the continental shelf near the mouth of the Eel River revealed regional variations in acoustic backscatter that can be related to the shelf sedimentology. The acoustic-backscatter variations observed on the shelf were unusually narrow compared to the response of similar sediment types documented in other areas. However, the acoustic data revealed four principal bottom types on the shelf that can be related to sedimentologic differences observed in cores. The four areas are: (1) low acoustic backscatter associated with the nearshore-sand facies and the prodelta terraces of the Eel and Mad rivers, composed of fine sands and coarse silts with low porosity; (2) high acoustic backscatter associated with fine silts characterized by high porosity and deposited by the 1995 flood of the Eel River; (3) intermediate acoustic backscatter in the outer-shelf muds, where clayey silts are accumulating and the 1995 flood apparently had limited direct effect; and (4) intermediate acoustic backscatter near the fringes of the 1995 flood deposits and in areas where the flood sediments were more disrupted by post-depositional processes. The highest acoustic backscatter was identified in areas where the 1995 flood sediments remained relatively intact and near the shelf surface into the summer of 1995. Cores collected from these areas contained wavy or lenticular bedding. The rapid deposition of the high-porosity muddy layers results in better preservation of incorporated ripple forms than in areas less directly impacted by the flood deposit. The high-porosity muddy layers allow acoustic penetration into the sediments and result in greater acoustic backscatter from incorporated roughness elements.