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Nonvolcanic Seafloor Spreading And Corner-Flow Rotation Accommodated By Extensional Faulting At 15 Degrees N On The Mid-Atlantic Ridge: A Structural Synthesis Of Odp Leg 209, T. Schroeder, H.J.B. Dick, U. Faul, J. F. Casey, P. B. Kelemen

Michael Cheadle

[1] Drilling during ODP Leg 209, dredging, and submersible dives have delineated an anomalous stretch of the Mid-Atlantic Ridge north and south of the 15 degrees 20'N Fracture Zone. The seafloor here consists dominantly of mantle peridotite with gabbroic intrusions that in places is covered by a thin, discontinuous extrusive volcanic layer. Thick lithosphere ( 10 - 20 km) in this region inhibits magma from reaching shallow levels beneath the ridge axis, thereby causing plate accretion to be accommodated by extensional faulting rather than magmatism. The bathymetry and complex fault relations in the drill-core suggest that mantle denudation and spreading …