Micrometre-scale deformation observations reveal fundamental controls on geological rifting
Many of the world's largest volcanic eruptions are associated with geological rifting where major fractures open at the Earth's surface, yet fundamental controls on the near-surface response to the rifting process are lacking. New high resolution observations gleaned from seismometer data...
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ftunivcolldublin:oai:researchrepository.ucd.ie:10197/12468 2023-05-15T16:47:22+02:00 Micrometre-scale deformation observations reveal fundamental controls on geological rifting Thun, Johannes Lokmer, Ivan Bean, Christopher J. Eibl, Eva P. S. 2021-09-14T09:30:58Z Electronic http://hdl.handle.net/10197/12468 https://doi.org/10.1038/srep36676 en eng Springer Nature Scientific Reports 2045-2322 http://hdl.handle.net/10197/12468 6 1 doi:10.1038/srep36676 289976 308377 This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in the credit line; if the material is not included under the Creative Commons license, users will need to obtain permission from the license holder to reproduce the material. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ie/ CC-BY Central Iceland Dike intrusion Volcano Eruption Waves Shear Journal Article 2021 ftunivcolldublin https://doi.org/10.1038/srep36676 2022-04-08T14:19:53Z Many of the world's largest volcanic eruptions are associated with geological rifting where major fractures open at the Earth's surface, yet fundamental controls on the near-surface response to the rifting process are lacking. New high resolution observations gleaned from seismometer data during the 2014 Bároarbunga basaltic dyke intrusion in Iceland allow us unprecedented access to the associated graben formation process on both sub-second and micrometre scales. We find that what appears as quasi steady-state near-surface rifting on lower resolution GPS observation comprises discrete staccato-like deformation steps as the upper crust unzips through repetitive low magnitude (M < 0) failures on fracture patches estimated between 300 m and 1200 m in size. Stress drops for these events are one to two orders of magnitude smaller than expected for tectonic earthquakes, demonstrating that the uppermost crust in the rift zone is exceptionally weak. European Commission - Seventh Framework Programme (FP7) Geological Survey of Ireland (GSI) Article in Journal/Newspaper Iceland University College Dublin: Research Repository UCD Scientific Reports 6 1 |
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Open Polar |
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University College Dublin: Research Repository UCD |
op_collection_id |
ftunivcolldublin |
language |
English |
topic |
Central Iceland Dike intrusion Volcano Eruption Waves Shear |
spellingShingle |
Central Iceland Dike intrusion Volcano Eruption Waves Shear Thun, Johannes Lokmer, Ivan Bean, Christopher J. Eibl, Eva P. S. Micrometre-scale deformation observations reveal fundamental controls on geological rifting |
topic_facet |
Central Iceland Dike intrusion Volcano Eruption Waves Shear |
description |
Many of the world's largest volcanic eruptions are associated with geological rifting where major fractures open at the Earth's surface, yet fundamental controls on the near-surface response to the rifting process are lacking. New high resolution observations gleaned from seismometer data during the 2014 Bároarbunga basaltic dyke intrusion in Iceland allow us unprecedented access to the associated graben formation process on both sub-second and micrometre scales. We find that what appears as quasi steady-state near-surface rifting on lower resolution GPS observation comprises discrete staccato-like deformation steps as the upper crust unzips through repetitive low magnitude (M < 0) failures on fracture patches estimated between 300 m and 1200 m in size. Stress drops for these events are one to two orders of magnitude smaller than expected for tectonic earthquakes, demonstrating that the uppermost crust in the rift zone is exceptionally weak. European Commission - Seventh Framework Programme (FP7) Geological Survey of Ireland (GSI) |
format |
Article in Journal/Newspaper |
author |
Thun, Johannes Lokmer, Ivan Bean, Christopher J. Eibl, Eva P. S. |
author_facet |
Thun, Johannes Lokmer, Ivan Bean, Christopher J. Eibl, Eva P. S. |
author_sort |
Thun, Johannes |
title |
Micrometre-scale deformation observations reveal fundamental controls on geological rifting |
title_short |
Micrometre-scale deformation observations reveal fundamental controls on geological rifting |
title_full |
Micrometre-scale deformation observations reveal fundamental controls on geological rifting |
title_fullStr |
Micrometre-scale deformation observations reveal fundamental controls on geological rifting |
title_full_unstemmed |
Micrometre-scale deformation observations reveal fundamental controls on geological rifting |
title_sort |
micrometre-scale deformation observations reveal fundamental controls on geological rifting |
publisher |
Springer Nature |
publishDate |
2021 |
url |
http://hdl.handle.net/10197/12468 https://doi.org/10.1038/srep36676 |
genre |
Iceland |
genre_facet |
Iceland |
op_relation |
Scientific Reports 2045-2322 http://hdl.handle.net/10197/12468 6 1 doi:10.1038/srep36676 289976 308377 |
op_rights |
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in the credit line; if the material is not included under the Creative Commons license, users will need to obtain permission from the license holder to reproduce the material. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ie/ |
op_rightsnorm |
CC-BY |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.1038/srep36676 |
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Scientific Reports |
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