科研之友
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摘要
Reconstructions of the history of convergence between the Nubia and Eurasia plates constitute an important part of a broader framework for understanding deformation in the Mediterranean region and the closing of the Mediterranean Basin. Herein, we combine high-resolution reconstructions of Eurasia-North America and Nubia-North America Plate motions to determine rotations that describe Nubia-Eurasia Plate motion at similar to 1 Myr intervals for the past 20 Myr. We apply trans-dimensional hierarchical Bayesian inference to the Eurasia-North America and Nubia-North America rotation sequences in order to reduce noise in the newly estimated Nubia-Eurasia rotations. The noise-reduced rotation sequences for the Eurasia-North America and Nubia-North America Plate pairs describe remarkably similar kinematic histories since 20 Ma, consisting of relatively steady seafloor spreading from 20 to 8 Ma, similar to 20 per cent opening-rate slowdowns at 8-6.5 Ma, and steady plate motion from similar to 7 Ma to the present. Our newly estimated Nubia-Eurasia rotations predict that convergence across the central Mediterranean Sea slowed by similar to 50 per cent and rotated anticlockwise after similar to 25 Ma until 13 Ma. Motion since 13 Ma has remained relatively steady. An absence of evidence for a significant change in motion immediately before or during the Messinian Salinity Crisis at 6.3-5.6 Ma argues against a change in plate motion as its causative factor. The detachment of the Arabian Peninsula from Africa at 30-24 Ma may have triggered the convergence rate slowdown before 13 Ma; however, published reconstructions of Nubia-Eurasia motion for times before 20 Ma are too widely spaced to determine with confidence whether the two are correlated. A significant discrepancy between our new estimates of Nubia-Eurasia motion during the past few Myr and geodetic estimates calls for further investigation.
- 出版日期2015-10
