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Science 3 January 1969:
Vol. 163. no. 3862, pp. 68 - 71
DOI: 10.1126/science.163.3862.68
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Articles

East Pacific Rise Crest: A Near-Bottom Geophysical Profile

Roger L. Larson 1 and Fred N. Spiess 1

1 University of California, San Diego Marine Physical Laboratory of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, La Jolla 92037

A deep-towed magnetometer profile made across the East Pacific Rise crest shows many anomalies with about 1000-gamma amplitudes and 500-meter wavelengths and has larger amplitude changes corresponding to magnetic field reversals. This profile across contacts between normal and reversely magnetized crustal blocks is interpreted to place an upper limit of 4700 years on the time required for field reversals and an upper limit of 280 meters on the width of the intrusion center at the rise crest. This intrusion center may occasionally shift several kilometers laterally with respect to the rise axis. The magnetometer records are compatible with the hypothesis that the magnetic field has undergone many fluctuations of short period and small intensity in the past 2 million years. Sediment accumulation increases from less than 2 meters at the rise crest axis to about 20 meters at the western end and 10 meters at the eastern end of the profile. This increase in accutmiulation appears to be the result of ocean-floor spreading.


THIS ARTICLE HAS BEEN CITED BY OTHER ARTICLES:
Sediment accumulation rates from Deep Tow profiler records and DSDP Leg 70 cores over the Galapagos spreading centre.
N. C. Mitchell (1998)
Geological Society, London, Special Publications 131, 199-209
   Abstract »    PDF »
East Pacific Rise: Hot Springs and Geophysical Experiments.
F. N. Spiess, F. N. Spiess, K. C. Macdonald, T. Atwater, R. Ballard, A. Carranza, D. Cordoba, C. Cox, V. M. D. Garcia, J. Francheteau, et al. (1980)
Science 207, 1421-1433
   Abstract »    PDF »
Fissure Basalts and Ocean-Floor Spreading on the East Pacific Rise.
R. P. Von Herzen, R. P. Von Herzen, and E. Bonatti (1969)
Science 166, 1181-1183
   PDF »
Magnetic Observations in Studies of Sea-Floor Spreading.
W. C. Kellogg, W. C. Kellogg, R. L. Larson, and F. N. Spiess (1969)
Science 165, 617-618
   PDF »


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