Reply to the comment of Talwani et al. (2017) on the Sibuet et al. (2016) paper entitled “Thinned continental crust intruded by volcanics beneath the northern Bay of Bengal”

• Published in: Marine and Petroleum Geology
• Main Authors: Sibuet, Jean-claude, Klingelhoefer, Frauke, Yeh, Yi-ching, Rangin, Claude, Lee, Chao-shing
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: Elsevier Sci Ltd 2017
• Subjects: Northern Bay of Bengal; Wide-angle and reflection seismic profiles; Multichannel seismic profiles; Thinned continental crust intruded by; volcanics; Hatton Bank; Kerguelen; North Atlantic
• Online Access: https://archimer.ifremer.fr/doc/00393/50459/51192.pdf; https://doi.org/10.1016/j.marpetgeo.2017.07.023; https://archimer.ifremer.fr/doc/00393/50459/

The northern Bay of Bengal velocity-depth profiles do not follow the velocity-depth curve of the North Atlantic volcanic margins, and only partially the Kerguelen velocity-depth curves. Deep seismic refraction and reflection profiles acquired across the Hatton bank and Feroes ridge show that the melt is intruded into the lower thinned continental crust as sills, which cross-cut the continental fabric rather than underplating as it was often assumed in the past. Compared with the SCS northern margin proxy, we still suggest that the BoB crust is thinned continental crust intruded by post-rifting volcanics, as also shown by the interpretation of the numerous high-quality deep MCS profiles we collected there. What was supposed to be underplating might be sills intruded through the lower thinned continental crust.