Sensitivity of seafloor bathymetry to climate-driven fluctuations in mid-ocean ridge magma supply

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2015-09Author
Olive, Jean-Arthur L.
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Behn, Mark D.
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Ito, Garrett T.
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Buck, W. Roger
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Escartin, Javier E.
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Howell, Samuel M.
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https://hdl.handle.net/1912/7607As published
https://doi.org/10.1126/science.aad0715Abstract
Recent studies have proposed that the bathymetric fabric of the seafloor formed
at mid-ocean ridges records rapid (23–100 kyr) fluctuations in ridge magma supply caused
by sea level changes that modulate melt production in the underlying mantle. Using
quantitative models of faulting and magma emplacement, we demonstrate that, in fact,
seafloor-shaping processes act as a low-pass filter on variations in magma supply, strongly
damping fluctuations shorter than ~100 kyr. We show that the systematic decrease in
dominant seafloor wavelengths with increasing spreading rate is best explained by a model
of fault growth and abandonment under a steady magma input. This provides a robust
framework for deciphering the footprint of mantle melting in the fabric of abyssal hills, the
most common topographic feature on Earth.
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Author Posting. © The Author(s), 2015. This is the author's version of the work. It is posted here by permission of American Association for the Advancement of Science for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Science 350 (2015): 6258, doi:10.1126/science.aad0715.