Origin and Geodynamic Evolution of King's Trough: The Grand Canyon of the North Atlantic, Cruise No. M168 (GPF 20-3_080), November 08 - December 08, 2020, Emden (Germany) - Emden (Germany)
The goal of R/V METEOR expedition M168 was to investigate the origin and geodynamic evolution of the enigmatic King’s Trough Complex, surrounding seamounts and the AzoresBiscay Rise in the North Atlantic Ocean northeast of the Azores. Before M168, these structures were still largely unexplored and t...
| Main Authors: | , , , |
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| Format: | Report |
| Language: | English |
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Gutachterpanel Forschungsschiffe
2020
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| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | https://oceanrep.geomar.de/id/eprint/51804/ https://oceanrep.geomar.de/id/eprint/51804/1/awi_doi_10.48433_cr_m168.pdf https://doi.org/10.48433/cr_m168 |
| Summary: | The goal of R/V METEOR expedition M168 was to investigate the origin and geodynamic evolution of the enigmatic King’s Trough Complex, surrounding seamounts and the AzoresBiscay Rise in the North Atlantic Ocean northeast of the Azores. Before M168, these structures were still largely unexplored and their origin has been debated for decades. Investigation of the structures was conducted by extensive rock sampling with chain bag dredges, by bathymetric mapping with the ship’s own multi-beam echo-sounding system (KONGSBERG EM 122) and by sub-bottom profiling (ATLAS PARASOUND P70). A total of 48 dredge hauls in water depths between 5,340 and 1,340 m were carried out at Palmer Ridge and associated Freen and Peake Troughs, at King’s Trough, at the Gnitsevich Seamounts northwest of King’s Trough and at the northernmost Azores-Biscay Rise including the North Charcot Seamount Complex directly in the east. Of these dredge hauls, 36 (= 76.6 %) yielded a variety of magmatic rocks comprising lava fragments and pillow lava occasionally containing fresh glass, gabbroic/dioritic and doleritic rocks, ultramafic rocks possibly of harzburgitic composition and volcaniclastic rocks. Bathymetric mapping revealed that King’s Trough is much more complex than it appeared from previously available maps based on low resolution satellite altimetry. It seems to be composed of individual segments striking in slightly different directions and could possibly formed by a series of strike-slip faults. |
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