King's Trough: reactivated pseudo-fault of a propagating rift

• Published in: Geophysical Journal International
• Main Authors: Srivastava, S. P., Roest, W. R.
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Published: Oxford University Press 1992
• Subjects: Articles; North Atlantic
• Online Access: http://gji.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/short/108/1/143; https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1365-246X.1992.tb00845.x

A compilation of magnetic data in the western North Atlantic shows that seafloor spreading magnetic anomalies 26 to 18 are dislocated across a (pseudo-) fault with a direction mirroring that of King's Trough. It is interpreted that this feature and King's Trough were formed by northward propagation of the rift, initiated by a hotspot that created the Azores-Biscay Rise. The rift propagation stopped when King's Trough became part of the plate boundary between Eurasia and Iberia at chron 17. Most of the present-day structure of King's Trough was created by extensional motion across this plate boundary from chron 17 to 9/6c.