Document Type

Student Presentation

Presentation Date

4-15-2019

College

College of Arts and Sciences

Department

Department of Geosciences

Faculty Sponsor

Dr. Dorsey Wanless

Abstract

Tectonism at mid-ocean ridges provides a primary control on ridge morphology, influences the physical properties of the oceanic crust, and records the relative contribution of magmatic injection to plate separation. This study examines the three-dimensional properties of small-scale faults within a segment (14N) of the slow-spreading Mid-Atlantic Ridge. Two research expeditions (AT33-03 and AT40-02) used the autonomous underwater vehicle Sentry to collect high-resolution (one meter) bathymetry data along the mid-ocean ridge. Bathymetry data were collected over four regions including the non-transform offset, the magmatic center, a magma-rich to magma-poor transitional zone, and a region adjacent to an extinct oceanic core complex. A GIS database of digitized faults from the Sentry data allow quantification of the tectonic setting and fault properties. The continuous wavelet transform, using the Haar wavelet, permits the extraction of spatial statistics. These data provide insight into the style and extent of fault growth in regions of varying magma supply along-axis.

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