Spreading-rate dependence of hydroacoustic and teleseismic seismicity of ridge-transform systems: East Pacific Rise, Galapagos Ridge, and Mid-Atlantic Ridge

Tingting Zheng; Jian Lin; Qiu Zhong

doi:10.1007/s13131-021-1936-6

Volume 41 Issue 5

May 2022

Turn off MathJax

Article Contents

Abstract

References

Article Navigation > Acta Oceanologica Sinica > 2022 > 41(5): 124-135

Wanli Chen, Xiaoxia Huang, Shiguo Wu, Gang Liu, Haotian Wei, Jiaqing Wu. Facies character and geochemical signature in the late Quaternary meteoric diagenetic carbonate succession at the Xisha Islands, South China Sea[J]. Acta Oceanologica Sinica, 2021, 40(3): 94-111. doi: 10.1007/s13131-021-1713-6

Citation:

Tingting Zheng, Jian Lin, Qiu Zhong. Spreading-rate dependence of hydroacoustic and teleseismic seismicity of ridge-transform systems: East Pacific Rise, Galapagos Ridge, and Mid-Atlantic Ridge[J]. Acta Oceanologica Sinica, 2022, 41(5): 124-135. doi: 10.1007/s13131-021-1936-6

Citation:

PDF( 5711 KB)

Spreading-rate dependence of hydroacoustic and teleseismic seismicity of ridge-transform systems: East Pacific Rise, Galapagos Ridge, and Mid-Atlantic Ridge

doi: 10.1007/s13131-021-1936-6

Tingting Zheng^{1, 2, 3, †},
Jian Lin^{1, 2, 4, 5, †},
Qiu Zhong^{1, 2
,
,}

1.
Key Laboratory of Ocean and Marginal Sea Geology, South China Sea Institute of Oceanology, Innovation Academy of South China Sea Ecology and Environmental Engineering, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Guangzhou 510301, China
2.
Southern Marine Science and Engineering Guangdong Laboratory (Guangzhou), Guangzhou 511458, China
3.
China-Pakistan Joint Research Center on Earth Sciences, Chinese Academy of Science–Higher Education Commission (Pakistan), Islamabad 45320, Pakistan
4.
Department of Ocean Science and Engineering, Southern University of Science and Technology, Shenzhen 518055, China
5.
Department of Geology and Geophysics, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, Woods Hole, MA 02543, USA

Funds: The Fund of the Southern Marine Science and Engineering Guangdong Laboratory (Guangzhou) under contract No. GML2019ZD0205; the National Natural Science Foundation of China under contract Nos 42006055, 41704049, 41890813, 41976066, and 41976064; The Fund of the State Key Laboratory of Marine Geology, Tongji University under contract No. MGK202011; the Scholarship of China Scholarship Council; the Program of Chinese Academy of Sciences under contract Nos Y4SL021001, QYZDY-SSW-DQC005, 131551KYSB20200021, 133244KYSB20180029, and ISEE2021PY03; the International Conference Communication Fund for Graduate Students, Tongji University.

More Information

Corresponding author: E-mail: qiuzhong@scsio.ac.cn
Received Date: 2021-05-17
Accepted Date: 2021-10-15

Available Online: 2022-03-21

Publish Date: 2022-05-31

Abstract

Abstract

Seismicity in ocean ridge-transform systems reveals fundamental processes of mid-ocean ridges, while comparisons of seismicity in different oceans remain rare due to a lack of detection of small events. From 1996 to 2003, the Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA/PMEL) deployed several hydrophones in the eastern Pacific Ocean and the northern Atlantic Ocean. These hydrophones recorded earthquakes with small magnitudes, providing us with opportunities to study the seismic characteristics of ridge-transform systems at different spreading rates and make further comparisons of their differences. This study comparatively analyzed hydroacoustic and teleseismic data recorded on the fast-spreading East Pacific Rise (EPR, 10°S to 12°N), intermediate-spreading Galapagos Ridge (103° W to 80° W), and slow-spreading Mid-Atlantic Ridge (MAR, 15°N to 37°N). We present a systematic study of the spatial and temporal distribution of events, aftershock seismicity, and possible triggering mechanisms of aftershock sequences. Our analysis yields the following conclusions. (1) From the hydroacoustic data, the EPR transform faults had the highest average seismicity rate among the three regions. (2) Along-ridge event distributions show that a high number of earthquakes were concentrated on the EPR, while they became dispersed on the GR and fewer and more scattered on the MAR, reflecting that the different tectonic origins were closely correlated with the spreading rate. (3) Analysis from mainshock-aftershock sequences shows no significant differences in the aftershock decay rate among the three regions. (4) Multiple types of aftershock triggering models were inferred from Coulomb stress changes: strike-slip mainshocks triggered strike-slip aftershocks and normal faulting aftershocks, and normal faulting mainshocks triggered normal faulting aftershocks. Although these results are case studies, they may be applicable to other ocean ridge-transform systems in future investigations. Our results provide important new insights into the seismicity of global ocean ridge-transform systems.
- East Pacific Rise,
- Galapagos Ridge,
- Mid-Atlantic Ridge,
- hydroacoustic and teleseismic seismicity,
- ridge-transform system

† These authors contributed equally to this work.

FullText(HTML)

References(38)

References

[1]	Barclay A H, Toomey D R, Solomon S C. 1998. Seismic structure and crustal magmatism at the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, 35°N. Journal of Geophysical Research: Solid Earth, 103(B8): 17827–17844. doi: 10.1029/98JB01275
[2]	Bird P. 2003. An updated digital model of plate boundaries. Geochemistry, Geophysics, Geosystems, 4(3): 1027,
[3]	Bohnenstiehl D R, Tolstoy M, Dziak R P, et al. 2002. Aftershock sequences in the mid-ocean ridge environment: an analysis using hydroacoustic data. Tectonophysics, 354(1–2): 49–70. doi: 10.1016/S0040-1951(02)00289-5
[4]	Bohnenstiehl D R, Tolstoy M. 2003. Comparison of teleseismically and hydroacoustically derived earthquake locations along the north-central Mid-Atlantic Ridge and Equatorial East Pacific Rise. Seismological Research Letters, 74(6): 791–802. doi: 10.1785/gssrl.74.6.791
[5]	DeMets C, Gordon R G, Argus D F, et al. 1990. Current plate motions. Geophysical Journal International, 101(2): 425–478. doi: 10.1111/j.1365-246X.1990.tb06579.x
[6]	Engeln J F, Wiens D A, Stein S. 1986. Mechanisms and depths of Atlantic transform earthquakes. Journal of Geophysical Research: Solid Earth, 91(B1): 548–577. doi: 10.1029/JB091iB01p00548
[7]	Escartín J, Lin Jian. 1995. Ridge offsets, normal faulting, and gravity anomalies of slow spreading ridges. Journal of Geophysical Research: Solid Earth, 100(B4): 6163–6177. doi: 10.1029/94JB03267
[8]	Fox P J, Gallo D G. 1984. A tectonic model for ridge-transform-ridge plate boundaries: Implications for the structure of oceanic lithosphere. Tectonophysics, 104(3−4): 205–242. doi: 10.1016/0040-1951(84)90124-0
[9]	Fox C G, Matsumoto H, Lau T K A. 2001. Monitoring Pacific Ocean seismicity from an autonomous hydrophone array. Journal of Geophysical Research: Solid Earth, 106(B3): 4183–4206. doi: 10.1029/2000JB900404
[10]	Fox C G, Radford W E, Dziak R P, et al. 1995. Acoustic detection of a seafloor spreading episode on the Juan de Fuca Ridge using military hydrophone arrays. Geophysical Research Letters, 22(2): 131–134. doi: 10.1029/94GL02059
[11]	Gregg P M, Lin Jian, Smith D K. 2006. Segmentation of transform systems on the East Pacific Rise: Implications for earthquake processes at fast-slipping oceanic transform faults. Geology, 34(4): 289–292. doi: 10.1130/g22212.1
[12]	Gutenberg B, Richter C F. 1944. Frequency of earthquakes in California. Bulletin of the Seismological Society of America, 34(4): 185–188. doi: 10.1785/BSSA0340040185
[13]	Huang P Y, Solomon S C. 1988. Centroid depths of mid-ocean ridge earthquakes: Dependence on spreading rate. Journal of Geophysical Research: Solid Earth, 93(B11): 13445–13477. doi: 10.1029/JB093iB11p13445
[14]	Huang P Y, Solomon S C, Bergman E A, et al. 1986. Focal depths and mechanism of Mid-Atlantic Ridge earthquakes from body waveform inversion. Journal of Geophysical Research: Solid Earth, 91(B1): 579–598. doi: 10.1029/JB091iB01p00579
[15]	Husen S, Hardebeck J L. 2010. Theme IV—Understanding seismicity catalogs and their problems: Earthquake location accuracy. https://dx. doi.org/10.5078/corssa-55815573 [2010-09-05/2021-04-01]
[16]	Johansen S E, Panzner M, Mittet R, et al. 2019. Deep electrical imaging of the ultraslow-spreading Mohns Ridge. Nature, 567(7748): 379–383. doi: 10.1038/s41586-019-1010-0
[17]	Key K, Constable S, Liu Lijun, et al. 2013. Electrical image of passive mantle upwelling beneath the northern East Pacific Rise. Nature, 495(7442): 499–502. doi: 10.1038/nature11932
[18]	King G C P, Stein R S, Lin Jian. 1994. Static stress changes and the triggering of earthquakes. Bulletin of the Seismological Society of America, 84(3): 935–953
[19]	Kuo Banyuan, Forsyth D W. 1988. Gravity anomalies of the ridge-transform system in the South Atlantic between 31 and 34.5°S: Upwelling centers and variations in crustal thickness. Marine Geophysical Researches, 10(3–4): 205–232. doi: 10.1007/BF00310065
[20]	Lin Jian, Morgan J P. 1992. The spreading rate dependence of three-dimensional mid-ocean ridge gravity structure. Geophysical Research Letters, 19(1): 13–16. doi: 10.1029/91gl03041
[21]	Lin Jian, Purdy G M, Schouten H, et al. 1990. Evidence from gravity data for focused magmatic accretion along the Mid-Atlantic Ridge. Nature, 344(6267): 627–632. doi: 10.1038/344627a0
[22]	Lin Jian, Stein R S. 2004. Stress triggering in thrust and subduction earthquakes and stress interaction between the southern San Andreas and nearby thrust and strike-slip faults. Journal of Geophysical Research: Solid Earth, 109(B2): B02303. doi: 10.1029/2003JB002607
[23]	Mignan A, Woessner J. 2012. Theme IV—Understanding seismicity catalogs and their problems: Estimating the magnitude of completeness for earthquake catalogs. https://dx. doi.org/10.5078/corssa-00180805 [2012-04-01/2021-04-02]
[24]	Sandwell D T, Müller R D, Smith W H, et al. 2014. New global marine gravity model from CryoSat-2 and Jason-1 reveals buried tectonic structure. Science, 346(6205): 65–67. doi: 10.1126/science.1258213
[25]	Shen Yang. 2002. Seismicity at the southern East Pacific Rise from recordings of an ocean bottom seismometer array. Journal of Geophysical Research: Solid Earth, 107(B12): EPM 9-1–EPM 9-11,
[26]	Smith D K, Escartin J, Cannat M, et al. 2003. Spatial and temporal distribution of seismicity along the northern Mid-Atlantic Ridge (15°–35°N). Journal of Geophysical Research: Solid Earth, 108(B3): 2167. doi: 10.1029/2002jb001964
[27]	Smith D K, Tolstoy M, Fox C G, et al. 2002. Hydroacoustic monitoring of seismicity at the slow-spreading Mid-Atlantic Ridge. Geophysical Research Letters, 29(11): 13-1–13-4,
[28]	Stein R S. 1999. The role of stress transfer in earthquake occurrence. Nature, 402(6762): 605–609. doi: 10.1038/45144
[29]	Toda S, Stein R S. 2000. Did stress triggering cause the large off-fault aftershocks of the 25 March 1998 M_w=8.1 Antarctic Plate earthquake?. Geophysical Research Letters, 27(15): 2301–2304. doi: 10.1029/1999GL011129
[30]	Toda S, Stein R S, Richards-Dinger K, et al. 2005. Forecasting the evolution of seismicity in southern California: Animations built on earthquake stress transfer. Journal of Geophysical Research: Solid Earth, 110(B5): B05S16. doi: 10.1029/2004jb003415
[31]	Tucholke B E, Lin Jian. 1994. A geological model for the structure of ridge segments in slow spreading ocean crust. Journal of Geophysical Research: Solid Earth, 99(B6): 11937–11958. doi: 10.1029/94JB00338
[32]	Utsu T. 1961. A statistical study on the occurrence of aftershocks. Geophysical Magazine, 30(4): 521–605
[33]	Utsu T, Ogata Y, Matsu’ura R S. 1995. The centenary of the omori formula for a decay law of aftershock activity. Journal of Physics of the Earth, 43(1): 1–33. doi: 10.4294/jpe1952.43.1
[34]	Wang Tingting, Tucholke B E, Lin Jian. 2015. Spatial and temporal variations in crustal production at the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, 25°N–27°30′N and 0–27 Ma. Journal of Geophysical Research: Solid Earth, 120(4): 2119–2142. doi: 10.1002/2014JB011501
[35]	Wells D L, Coppersmith K J. 1994. New empirical relationships among magnitude, rupture length, rupture width, rupture area, and surface displacement. Bulletin of the Seismological Society of America, 84(4): 974–1002
[36]	Wiemer S, Wyss M. 2000. Minimum magnitude of completeness in earthquake catalogs: Examples from Alaska, the Western United States, and Japan. Bulletin of the Seismological Society of America, 90(4): 859–869. doi: 10.1785/0119990114
[37]	Wilson J T. 1965. A new class of faults and their bearing on continental drift. Nature, 207(4995): 343–347. doi: 10.1038/207343a0
[38]	Zheng Tingting, Tucholke B E, Lin Jian. 2019. Long-term evolution of nontransform discontinuities at the mid-atlantic ridge, 24°N–27°30′N. Journal of Geophysical Research: Solid Earth, 124(10): 10023–10055. doi: 10.1029/2019JB017648

Relative Articles

Relative Articles

Supplements(0)

Cited By

Cited by

Periodical cited type(5)

1.	Yinqiang Li, Kefu Yu, Lizeng Bian, et al. Dominance of coralline algae in the South China Sea: Insights into their responses to paleoceanographic events over the last 20 million years. Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology, 2025, 663: 112805. doi:10.1016/j.palaeo.2025.112805
2.	Haoyu Guo, Yingying Ou, Zhan Wang, et al. Evaluation of starvation status in the early developmental stages of black rockfish (Sebastes schlegelii) based on morphological and histological characteristics. Journal of Fish Biology, 2025, 106(1): 48. doi:10.1111/jfb.15630
3.	Liyou Zhang, Mengjie Yu, Yilin Dou, et al. Effects of Gillnet Mesh Size on the Size Selectivity and Catch Efficiency for Two Rockfish in the Artificial Reef Area of Shandong Province, China. Fisheries Management and Ecology, 2024. doi:10.1111/fme.12764
4.	Wanli Chen, Shiguo Wu, Dawei Wang, et al. Stratigraphic evolution and drowning steps of a submerged isolated carbonate platform in the northern South China Sea. Frontiers in Marine Science, 2023, 10 doi:10.3389/fmars.2023.1200788
5.	Feng Wu, Youhua Zhu. Quaternary subsidence history of Xisha Islands (northern South China Sea): Evidences from the reef-bank system. Marine and Petroleum Geology, 2022, 144: 105843. doi:10.1016/j.marpetgeo.2022.105843