Note to users. If you're seeing this message, it means that your browser cannot find this page's style/presentation instructions -- or possibly that you are using a browser that does not support current Web standards. Find out more about why this message is appearing, and what you can do to make your experience of our site the best it can be.

Site Tools

  • AAAS
  • Subscribe
  • Feedback

Site Search

Search Advanced

Science 29 November 2002:
Vol. 298. no. 5599, pp. 1765 - 1768
DOI: 10.1126/science.1077950
Prev | Table of Contents | Next

Reports

Seismotectonics of Mid-Ocean Ridge Propagation in Hess Deep

Jacqueline S. Floyd,12* Maya Tolstoy,2 John C. Mutter,123 Christopher H. Scholz12

Hydroacoustic data from the eastern equatorial Pacific reveal low-magnitude seismicity concentrated at the propagating tip of the Galapagos Rise in Hess Deep. The patterns of seismicity and faulting are similar to those observed in the process zone of laboratory-scale propagating tensile cracks. Because the fracture energy required for propagation scales with crack length and process zone size, it follows that ridges can propagate stably in the brittle crust without exceptional resisting forces as proposed by previous models based on linear elastic fracture mechanics.

1 Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences,
2 Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory,
3 Earth Institute, Columbia University, 61 Route 9W, Palisades, NY 10964, USA.
*   To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: jsfloyd{at}ldeo.columbia.edu

Read the Full Text


THIS ARTICLE HAS BEEN CITED BY OTHER ARTICLES:
Cracking of lithosphere north of the Galapagos triple junction.
H. Schouten, D. K. Smith, L. G.J. Montesi, W. Zhu, and E. M. Klein (2008)
Geology 36, 339-342
   Abstract »    Full Text »    PDF »


ADVERTISEMENT
Click Me!

ADVERTISEMENT
Click Me!

To Advertise     Find Products

Science. ISSN 0036-8075 (print), 1095-9203 (online)