Article ID Journal Published Year Pages File Type
4694401 Tectonophysics 2008 14 Pages PDF
Abstract

An extensive geophysical and geological database is used to integrate observations and structural and stratigraphic modelling along the northern Vøring and Lofoten margins, off mid-Norway. Subsidence and fault analysis demonstrates depth-dependent lithosphere stretching along both margin segments, and the modelling concurs with an emergent or relatively shallow-water emplacement environment for the breakup lavas along the northern Vøring margin. However off Lofoten, subsidence modelling predicts ~ 1500 m of bathymetric relief during breakup in contradiction to the view of subaerial volcanic emplacement environment off mid-Norway. A distinct Early Eocene bathymetric gradient from Vøring to Lofoten margin is suggested exhibiting depths in the order of 500–1000 m on the latter margin, and thus an environment for submarine lava emplacement. The water depth may even have reached ~ 1250 m following breakup due to an initial, rapid margin subsidence of the Lofoten margin along a deep-rooted low-angle detachment fault. The differences between northern Vøring and Lofoten margin segments in pre- and post-breakup evolution are attributed to the Bivrost Lineament, a transfer zone separating the two margin segments, which appears as a major across-margin boundary in terms of margin physiography and paleogeography, differential sediment accommodation space, crustal- and lithosphere-scale structure, and breakup magmatism. Furthermore, gravity inversion results appear to independently predict a significantly greater volcanic addition on the Vøring than on the Lofoten margin.

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Physical Sciences and Engineering Earth and Planetary Sciences Earth-Surface Processes
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