Marc Fournier

Japan Sea, opening history and mechanism: A synthesis

The respective tectonic effects of back arc spreading and continental collision in Asia are considered either as two independent processes or as closely interrelated. Extrusion tectonics assumes that the opening of the South China Sea and the left-lateral motion along the Red River fault are geometrically linked in a pull-apart manner. This model is not accepted by several workers because the structural link between the two processes is not clearly demonstrated. In the case of the Japan Sea, we can show without ambiguity that back arc opening was controlled by large intracontinental strike-slip faults which can be easily understood as effects of the India-Asia collision far from the indenter. The Japan Sea opened in the early Miocene in a broad pull-apart zone between two major dextral strike-slip shear zones. The first one extends from north Sakhalin to central Japan along 2000 km, it has accommodated about 400 km of finite displacement. Deformation along it varies from dextral transpression in the north to dextral transtension in the south. The second is between Korea and SW Japan and has accommodated a smaller displacement of about 200 km. The extensional domain in between lies in the back arc region of Japan. Distributed stretching of the arc crust resulted in the formation of most of the Japan Sea, while localized oceanic spreading at the southern termination of the eastern transpressional shear zone shaped the Japan Basin. The first oceanic crust was formed in a small triangle based on the eastern shear zone, and spreading propagated westward inside the pull-apart region. Timing of oceanic crust formation, of formation of the dextral shear zones and of block rotation in between, as well as the internal structure of the basins and the geometry of deformation along the master shear zones are used to reconstruct the opening history. This evolution is discussed by comparison to other manifestations of the arc and back arc activity, such as the history of sedimentation and volcanism. The paper then suggests that the collision of India can have tectonic consequences as far north as Japan and Sakhalin and describes the geometrical relation of back arc opening there and diffuse extrusion.

Kinematics, topography, shortening, and extrusion in the India‐Eurasia collision

We examine the problem of partitioning between shortening and extrusion in the India-Asia collision since 45 Ma. We compute the amount of shortening expected from the kinematics of Indias motion with respect to Eurasia, using the reconstruction at collision time to put bounds on the possible amounts of surface loss within Greater India and within Eurasia. We then compute the amounts of surface loss corresponding to the thickened crust of Tibet and of the Himalayas, assuming conservation of continental crust. The spatial distribution of the topography reveals a large systematic deficit of crustal thickening distributed rather uniformly west of the eastern syntaxis but an excess of shortening east of it. This distribution indicates an important eastward crustal mass transfer. However, the excess mass east of the eastern syntaxis does not account for more than one third to one half of the deficit west of the eastern syntaxis. The deficit may be accounted either by loss of lower crust into the mantle, for example through massive eclogitization, or by lateral extrusion of nonthickened crust. A mass budget of the crust of the Himalayas indicates that lower crust has not been conserved there, but the deficit is so large that local loss in the mantle is unlikely to be the unique cause of the deficit. Alternatively, following Zhao and Morgan [1985], lower crust may have been transferred below the Tibetan crust. We conclude that a combination of possible transfer of lower crust to the mantle by eclogitization and lateral extrusion has to account for a minimum of one third and a maximum of one half of the total amount of shortening between India and Asia since 45 Ma. This conclusion leaves open the possibility that the partitioning between extrusion and loss of lower crust into the mantle on the one hand and shortening on the other hand has significantly changed during the 45 m.y. history of the collision.

The last 50,000 years in the Neotropics (Southern Brazil): evolution of vegetation and climate

Abstract In the “Lagoa Campestre” (Lake) of Salitre (19°S, 46°46′W, 970 m elev.), there are plant taxa belonging to many ecological groups that are encountered nowhere else at this latitude. Frequent incursions of polar advections causing cooling and humidity, a cool and foggy climate in the middle of the depression and warmer temperatures on the surrounding slopes help to maintain all these groups within a fairly restricted area. Late Pleistocene-Holocene climatic change has had a considerable impact on the flora and vegetation of Salitre. The pollen record of the 6 m deep core LC3 shows how cold forest trees such as Araucaria angustifolia and Drimys brasiliensis, semi-deciduous forest, halophytic plants and peat bog started to develop on this site. The initial period, between c. 50,000 and 40,000 yr B.P., was an arid phase not recorded in any other neotropical lowland site. It was followed by a period of high moisture levels (40,000 to 27,000 yr B.P.) with a maximum estimated at c. 35,000 yr B.P. The Late Glacial maximum is missing because of a gap in sedimentation. Humidity gradually increased during the Late Pleistocene, between 16,000 and 11,000 yr B.P. The early Holocene, 9500 to 5000 yr B.P., is characterized by a more marked seasonal pattern and higher temperatures, reaching a maximum c. 5000 yr B.P. The spread of semi-deciduous forest between 4000 and 3000 yr B.P. attests to a return of humidity. Comparison with the Serra Negra section (19°S, 46°45′–46′W, 1170 m elev.) not far from Salitre confirms the high moisture rates recorded at c. 35–40,000 yr B.P. (although temperatures were cooler at the altitude of Serra Negra, as is attested by the presence of Araucaria forest) and also confirms the strong impact of polar advections on the climate of Southeastern Brazil.

Ductile extension in alpine Corsica

Ductile deformation in high-pressure ( P )-low temperature ( T ) conditions due to the westward thrusting of oceanic material onto a continental basement in alpine Corsica is overprinted by a late deformation event with a reverse shear sense (eastward) that took place in less severe P-T conditions. We show that the late deformation can be linked to extension during rifting and spreading of the Liguro Provencal basin from late Oligocene to late-middle Miocene time. Major compressive thrust contacts were reactivated as ductile normal faults and, in some units, only a penetrative eastward shear can be observed. This extension following the thickening of the crust brought tectonic units which underwent very different P- T conditions during the earlier stage into close contact. The Balagne nappe, which shows neither significant ductile deformation nor metamorphism, directly overlies the high- P units. The extensional deformation is distributed through the entire thickness of the nappe stack but is more important along the major thrust contacts, which localize the strain. The geometry of the crustal extension is controlled by that of the early compressive thrusts. The latest structures are east-dipping brittle normal faults which bound the early to middle Miocene Saint Florent half graben.

Tropical forest changes during the late quaternary in African and South American lowlands

Abstract Arboreal pollen and montane elements of Late Quaternary pollen assemblages from three lacustrine cores (West Cameroon, southeastern Amazonia and central Brazil) are correlated, by the radiocarbon chronology, with other palaeoenvironmental records in Africa and South America. We observe in both continents a well-developed dense forest at 30,000 and 9000 yr B.P. The succession of vegetation types during the Late Quaternary appeared strongly related to the regional conditions: (1) the dense forest was more or less degraded depending on the regions during the last full glacial period (20,000–15,000 yr B.P.); (2) a slow increase of tree elements is evidenced in some areas during the Late Glacial (15,000–10,000 yr B.P.), whereas short-term fluctuations occurred in central Brazil during the same time; (3) a strong regression of the forest during the middle Holocene (6000–5000 yr B.P.), in the southern tropical zone of South America, was in opposition to a full forest development in Africa. In both continents two main features characterize the tropical forest evolution: (1) Montane elements developed in the lowlands during the last glacial period and in some southern or northern regions during the early Holocene; and (2) the climate seasonality was enhanced in several regions since 8500–7500 yr B.P. For a tentative explanation, we relate the cold or cool climate, inferred by palaeoecological evidences in the glacial period and glacial-interglacial transition, to polar air-masses reaching more frequently the tropical zone. This interpretation explains the apparent contradiction between the markedly low temperature of the continental lowlands opposed: (1) at 18,000 yr B.P., to the 1–2°C lower Sea Surface Temperature of tropical oceans and (2) to the global warming during the late glacial. During the middle and Late Holocene, climate evolution was mainly influenced by the latitudinal shift of the ITCZ positions in July and January and, in South America, by short-term changes of the zonal atmospheric circulation.

Neogene strike-slip faulting in Sakhalin and the Japan Sea opening

We describe structural data from a 2000 km N-S dextral strike-slip zone extending from northern Sakhalin to the southeast corner of the Japan Sea. Satellite images, field data, and focal mechanisms of earthquakes in Sakhalin are included in the interpretation. Since Miocene time the deformation in Sakhalin has been taken up by N-S dextral strike-slip faults with a reverse component and associated en echelon folds. Narrow en echelon Neogene basins were formed along strike-sup faults and were later folded in a second stage of deformation. We propose a model of basin formation along extension al faults delimitating dominos between two major strike-slip faults, and subsequent counterclockwise rotation of the dominos in a dextral transpressional regime, basins becoming progressively oblique to the direction of maximum horizontal compression and undergoing shortening. The association of both dextral and compressional focal mechanisms of earthquakes indicates that the same transpressional regime still prevails today in Sakhalin. We present fault set measurements undertaken in Noto Peninsula and Yatsuo Basin at the southern end of the Sakhalin-East Japan Sea strike-slip zone. Early and middle Miocene formations recorded the same transtensional regime as observed along the west coast of NE Honshu. During the early and middle Miocene the strike-slip regime was transpressional to the north in Sakhalin and Hokkaido, and transtensional to the south along the west coast of NE Honshu as far as Noto Peninsula and Yatsuo basin. Dextral motion accommodated the opening of the Japan Sea as a pull-apart basin, with the Tsushima fault to the west. The opening of the Japan Sea ceased at the end of the middle Miocene when transtension started to change to E-W compression in the Japan arc. Subduction of the Japan Sea lithosphere under the Japan arc started 1.8 Ma ago. The evolution of the stress regime from transtensional to compressional in the southern part of the strike-slip zone is related to the inception of the subduction of the young Philippine Sea Plate lithosphere under the Japan arc during the late Miocene. Subduction related extension is a necessary condition for the opening of the Japan Sea. Two possible mechanisms can account for dextral shear in this area: (1) counterclockwise rotation of crustal blocks due to the collision of India with Asia, (2) extrusion of the Okhotsk Sea block squeezed between the North America and Eurasia plates.

Arabia-Somalia plate kinematics, evolution of the Aden-Owen-Carlsberg triple junction, and opening of the Gulf of Aden

New geophysical data collected at the Aden‐Owen‐Carlsberg (AOC) triple junction between the Arabia, India, and Somalia plates are combined with all available magnetic data across the Gulf of Aden to determine the detailed Arabia‐Somalia plate kinematics over the past 20 Myr. We reconstruct the history of opening of the Gulf of Aden, including the penetration of the Sheba Ridge into the African continent and the evolution of the triple junction since its formation. Magnetic data evidence three stages of ridge propagation from east to west. Seafloor spreading initiated ∼20 Myr ago along a 200 kmlong ridge portion located immediately west of the Owen fracture zone. A second 500 kmlong ridge portion developed westward up to the Alula‐Fartak transform fault before Chron 5D (17.5 Ma). Before Chron 5C (16.0 Ma), a third 700 km‐long ridge portion was emplaced between the Alula‐Fartak transform fault and the western end of the Gulf of Aden (45°E). Between 20 and 16 Ma, the Sheba Ridge propagated over a distance of 1400 km at an extremely fast average rate of 35 cm yr−1. The ridge propagation resulted from the Arabia‐Somalia rigid plate rotation about a stationary pole. Since Chron 5C (16.0 Ma), the spreading rate of the Sheba Ridge decreased first rapidly until 10 Ma and then more slowly. The evolution of the AOC triple junction is marked by a change of configuration around 10 Ma, with the formation of a new Arabia‐India plate boundary. Part of the Arabian plate was then transferred to the Indian plate.

Alpine Corsica Metamorphic Core Complex

Alpine Corsica is an example where superficial nonmetamorphic allochtonous units rest upon a highly strained metamorphic complex. Early ductile deformation under high pressure-low temperature (HP-LT) conditions is due to the westward thrusting of oceanic material onto a continental basement as shown by previous studies. New thermobarometric estimates yield minimal peak HP-LT metamorphism conditions of 11 kbar at 400°C. The early deformation is overprinted by a ductile deformation with an eastward sense of shear postdating or contemporaneous with mineral recrystallizations in the greenschist facies conditions. Early compressive thrust contacts are reworked as east dipping ductile normal faults and the less competent units display only eastward shear criteria. The upper units are affected by an extensional brittle deformation, and east dipping brittle normal faults bound to the west the early to middle Miocene Saint-Florent half-graben. The greenschist metamorphic event lasted until 33 Ma, which is contemporaneous with the beginning of the extension in the Liguro-Provencal basin. We interpret the second deformation stage as the result of a ductile extension following the overthickening of the crust due to the westward thrusting. Extension reduces the thickness of the crust so that upper units free from early P-T conditions are brought into close contact with a HP-LT metamorphic core complex. The geometry of the late extension is controlled by that of the early compressive thrust.

Geometry and kinematics of extension in Alpine Corsica

The geometry of the most recent deformation in Alpine Corsica is discussed in terms of reactivation of thrusts as normal faults and crustal extension, following crustal thickening in late Cretaceous and Eocene time. A cross section interpreted in terms of obduction in previous works is shown here to be a result of ductile and brittle extension in late Oligocene and Early Miocene time. This new interpretation is based on field observations of the brittle and ductile structures and their relations to the metamorphic history in the Tenda-col de Teghime and Centuri regions, as well as additional observations in other parts of Alpine Corsica. The following geological features are observed: (1) The recent deformation was partly achieved during a top-to-the-east ductile shear close to the brittle-ductile transition and was later superimposed by brittle shear indicating a transition in time from ductile to brittle regime. (2) Extensional brittle structures in the Early Miocene Saint Florent limestone and sense of tilt are compatible with the eastward sense of shear observed in the ductile rocks. (3) The movement along major “thrust” contacts is associated with retrograde metamorphism which overprinted the early high-P-low-T paragenesis at less severe P-T conditions. They also bring tectonic units with contrasted metamorphic evolutions into close contacts. (4) There is a regional correlation between retromorphosis and recent deformation since the high-P-low-T paragenesis are better preserved in southern of Alpine Corsica where the recent deformation is less pervasive. (5) Highly non-coaxial deformation is localized along east-dipping shear zones close to brittle normal faults which bounds tilted Miocene basins; in between the geometry is more symmetric and the finite strain therefore more coaxial. (6) Late extensional brittle structures are observed at many sites in the metamorphic rocks. In the present paper we discussed these first-order observations and describe the geometry of crustal extension in Alpine Corsica. We analyze the progressive formation of a crustal-scale tilted block in Cap Corse and propose that the normal faults are localized by asymmetric boudinage of the crust. The asymmetry of this crustal-scale boudinage is controlled by the position of early thrust planes.

Reappraisal of the Arabia^India^Somalia triple junction kinematics

Abstract We propose alternative kinematics for the Arabia–India–Somalia triple junction based on a re-interpretation of seismological and magnetic data. The new triple junction of the ridge–ridge–ridge type is located at the bend of the Sheba Ridge in the eastern gulf of Aden at 14.5°N and 56.4°E. The Owen fracture zone (Arabia–India boundary) is connected to the Sheba Ridge by an ultra-slow divergent boundary trending N80°E±10° marked by diffuse seismicity. The location of the Arabia–India rotation pole is constrained at 14.1°N and 71.2°E by fitting the active part of the Owen fracture zone with a small circle. The finite kinematics of the triple junction is inferred from the present-day kinematics. Since the inception of the accretion 15–18 Ma ago, the Sheba Ridge has probably receded ∼300 km at the expense of the Carlsberg Ridge which propagated northwestward in the gulf of Aden, while an ultra-slow divergent plate boundary developed between the Arabian and Indian plates. The overall geometry of the new triple junction is very similar to that of the Azores triple junction.