Is obliquity and width

related?
Passive Margins and Rifts
•What is the central theme?
•What is the relevance in the context of plate tectonics?
•What important aspect does it have in the specific topic (passive margin)?
•Other potential perspectives?
 Obliquity

angle α between the

normal to a rift
trend and the
displacement vector
of the plate ¿What is
the trend of a Rift?
Rift trend
A rift trend is a rift segment that is more-or-less
parallel to rift deformation limits, such as the
conjugate continent-ocean boundaries (COB)
 -global plate rotation models:
Uses Seton (2012)
Matthews (2016)
Torsvik and Cocks (2016)
(solves: no model is perfect)
Major differences: choice of the initial position prior to continental rifting of
the Australian plate and Iberian Plate, diminishing the high transtension
component

- First 40 and last 40km of extensión prior to breakup (Rift to

ridge) and average of obliquity per amount of million years
(solves: consider “complex plate interactions” )
Rifting is multiphase (Whitmarsh and Wallace, 2001; Péron-Pinvidic and Manatschal,
2009), this raises the question which stage of rifting may control deformation
features related to transtension
¿How long is from beggining to break up?
From beggining to break up
• “existing datasets and the lack of conjugate rifted
margins seismic profiles do not allow us, yet, to restore
all conjugate rifted margins to their initial state. We
indirectly measure the rift width using boundaries
that most rifted margins have.”
• To use Rift flanks we would need no inherited deformation and be
exempted of initial topography

• Location of maximum topography is primarily controlled by deep crustal

root structures (Matmon 2002) and is stable in time. Yet it has been argued
that retreat of a rift escarpment could occur at rates of 1 to 2km/Myr
(Gunnell and Harbor, 2010)

• Offshore, we use last identified continental crust (Seton 2012 and

corrections on the availability of seismic data)
“Good” Results
• In general more rifted margins with lower than with
higher rift obliquities: between a third and a half of the
rifted margins range between 10◦ and 30◦ rift obliquity.
This result seems to differ from the obliquity evaluation
for extensional plate bound arises by Philippon and Corti
(2016) which shows a higher percent age of present-day
high obliquity plate boundaries
• why do we not observe more highly oblique margins?
Others often use constant extension rates with time, do
not consider complex plate tectonic interactions
constant extension-obliquity rates
vs average
“Wrong” results
• orthogonal margins with rift obliquities between 0◦ and
10◦ are the least represented, may be simply related to
a statistic bias due a low number of samples.
Hipothesis: Main Ethiopian Rift seems to point to a relation between rift obliquity
and rift duration, with more oblique rifts being more mature
Others
• Heine and Brune (2014) suggest that when two rift
systems compete at the same time, the most
orthogonal rift system tends to fail

• oblique rifting requires less work (Brune et al.,

2012;Heine and Brune, 2014)
analyze the Early Cretaceous extension between
Africa and South America that was preceded by
∼20–30 m.y. of extensive intracontinental rifting
prior to the final separation between the two
plates
We investigate the spatiotemporal dynamics of
rifting in these domains through a joint plate
kinematic and three-dimensional forward
numerical modeling approach […]
Oblique rifts are mechanically favored because
they require both less strain and less force in order
to reach the plastic yield limit. This implies that rift
obliquity can act as selector between successful
ocean basin formation and failed rift
Continental rifts normally initiate within previously
deformed lithosphere and thus their evolution and
architecture can be largely controlled by inherited
weak zones in the pre-rift crust.
strong weak zone with high obliquity leads to a
staggered en-echelon rift geometry that lacks
rectilinear laterally persistent strain localization.
Furthermore, we find that rift obliquity and weak
zone strength may modulate rift fault length
Others
thermochronologic data and sedimentary
sequences in ocean basins suggest that initial,
tectonically controlled rift escarpments undergo
rapid and significant erosion only during the
earliest stages of seafloor spreading.
Development of stable passive margin
escarpments follows this period.
Escarpments increase in sinuosity as embayments
retreat more rapidly than interfluves.
Measurements of 24 escarpments suggest that
sinuosity, and the rate at which it increases,
depends upon the location of maximum uplift, the
geometry of the preescarpment drainage system,
and margin age. All data suggest that the location
of passive margin escarpments does not change
significantly over time.
 We present catchment‐averaged erosion rates
from detrital cosmogenic ¹⁰Be concentrations,
systematically covering distinct morphological
zones of the escarpment. Erosion rates are
differentiated across the escarpment, where the
high plateau and the coastal plain are slowly
eroding with an average rate of 9.7 m/Ma, and the
escarpment basins are eroding faster with an
A) Simple Rifting
B)The Western Rift model. A central lies
between two uplifted blocks,but the axis
of greatest uplift lies many kilometres
away from the fault scarps. Reversed
and disrupteddrainage is found on the right
hand side of each block.With reference to
East Africa the left block is Zaire; the right
block is Uganda. With reference
toAustralasia, the left block is eastern
Australia, the graben is the Tasman Sea or Despite certain anomalies, a suggested relative
Coral Sea, and the right'block might chronology (oldest first) is: erosion of plain,
represent parts of the Lord Howe Rise, New initiation of major river pattern, widespread basalt
Zealand, or other sialic fragments in the flows, uplift and formation of Great Divide,
SWPacific formation and retreat of the Great Escarpment
 Not so simple…
As erosion cuts into these belted outcrop systems they
impose initial and boundary conditions that steer
drainage recession into the plateau edge and control
escarpment-forming conditions. Pattern therefore controls
process. Although generic surface process models predict
scarp patterns and retreat in settings devoid of geological
heterogeneity, they tend to do so only at isolated
locations and for periods shorter than the lifespan of the
escarpments. Thus, to focus on relatively narrow strike-
perpendicular swaths of passive margin topography
misses important aspects of drainage integration, which
involves mobile drainage basin boundaries shifting across
but also along the strike of inherited geological structures
and through continental-scale bioclimatic zones,
escarpments can form, be destroyed, reform, and leave
topographic vestiges (buttes) of the retreating
escarpment. Given the pre-rift geological heterogeneities,
there are no a priori reasons why escarpment landscape
change should be uniform, steady or self-similar.
Others…

crustal rocks were exhumed where the continental crust has been tectonically
thinned to almost zero thickness
a transect of 10 sites was drilled across the southern Iberia Abssal Plain to inve
stigate the rift-to drift
evolution of the central part of the west Iberia nonvolcanic rifted continental m
argin
“more rifted margins with lower than with higher rift
obliquities, to differ from the obliquity evaluation for
extensional plate bound”

Most of the plate boundaries are activated

obliquely with respect to the direction of far field
stresses, as roughly only 8% of the plate
boundaries total length shows a very low obliquity
(ranging from 0 to 10°)
obliquity along plate boundaries is controlled by (i)
lateral rheological variations within the lithosphere
and (ii) the boundary conditions imposed by the
global plate circuit

“So the original author said he has different results

when they are the same”