Fault-magma interactions during early continental rifting: Seismicity of the Magadi-Natron-Manyara basins, Africa
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Date
2017
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
AGU Advancing Earth and Space Science
Abstract
Although magmatism may occur during the earliest stages of continental rifting, its role in strain accommodation remains weakly constrained by largely 2-D studies. We analyze seismicity data from a 13 month, 39-station broadband seismic array to determine the role of magma intrusion on state-of-stress and strain localization, and their along-strike variations. Precise earthquake locations using cluster analyses and a new 3-D velocity model reveal lower crustal earthquakes beneath the central basins and along projections of steep border faults that degas CO2. Seismicity forms several disks interpreted as sills at 6–10 km below a monogenetic cone field. The sills overlie a lower crustal magma chamber that may feed eruptions at Oldoinyo Lengai volcano. After determining a new ML scaling relation, we determine a b-value of 0.8760.03. Focal mechanisms for 65 earthquakes, and 13 from a catalogue prior to our array reveal an along-axis stress rotation of _608 in the magmatically active zone. New and prior mechanisms show predominantly normal slip along steep nodal planes, with extension directions _N908E north and south of an active volcanic chain consistent with geodetic data, and _N1508E in the volcanic chain. The stress rotation facilitates strain transfer from border fault systems, the locus of early-stage deformation, to the zone of magma intrusion in the central rift. Our seismic, structural, and geochemistry results indicate that frequent lower crustal earthquakes are promoted by elevated pore pressures from volatile degassing along border faults, and hydraulic fracture around the margins of magma bodies. Results indicate that earthquakes are largely driven by stress state around inflating magma bodies.
Description
Full Text Article. Also available at: https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/2017GC007027
Keywords
Continental rifting, Magmatism, East Africa, Seismicity, Magma intrusion, Earthquake location
Citation
Weinstein, A., Oliva, S. J., Ebinger, C. J., Roecker, S., Tiberi, C., Aman, M. ... & Peyrat, S. (2017). Fault‐magma interactions during early continental rifting: Seismicity of the Magadi‐Natron‐Manyara basins, Africa. Geochemistry, Geophysics, Geosystems, 18(10), 3662-3686.