Submit a Manuscript to the Journal
International Geology Review
For a Special Issue on
Crust of the North Atlantic Realm
Abstract deadline
Manuscript deadline
Special Issue Editor(s)
Gillian R. Foulger,
Dept. Earth Sciences, Durham University, Durham, UK
[email protected]
James H. Natland,
Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science, University of Miami, Miami, USA
[email protected]
Romain Meyer,
Department of Geology, Naalakkersuisut – Government of Greenland, Ministry of Business, Mineral Resources, Energy, Justice and Gender Equality, Greenland
[email protected]
Benoit Gibert,
Laboratoire Géosciences Montpellier, Université de Montpellier, Montpellier, France
[email protected]
Crust of the North Atlantic Realm
This Special Issue invites cross-disciplinary contributions on the crust in and around the North Atlantic ocean, and comparative work in the neighboring oceans. We seek to produce a collection of foundation review papers on which to progress work on currently unresolved complexities in structure and process in this field, and to transfer the new knowledge to other oceans.
The North Atlantic Realm is the place where Wegener's continental drift hypothesis was first tested and it is the type example locality of the Wilson Cycle. It is also of economic importance. Nevertheless, despite intensive research enigmatic features still defy explanation using classical concepts. For example, continental breakup was piecemeal and unstable. Axes of extension migrated on all scales ranging from large, e.g., transfer from the Labrador-Baffin Bay axis to the current mid-Atlantic ridge, to small, e.g., ongoing rift jumps in Iceland today.
The composition and emplacement process of seaward-dipping reflectors in the volcanic passive margins (VPMs) that encircle the North Atlantic and neighboring oceans still are only partly understood. The nature of the “high-velocity lower crust” that underlies the volcanic passive margins remains controversial as does that of the 30-40 km thick crust beneath the 1200-km-wide trans-oceanic Greenland-Iceland-Faroe Ridge (GIFR) and the analogous Davis Strait. Hybrid crust (or “transitional crust”) i.e. highly-extended, magma-inflated continental crust may underlie distal parts of the volcanic passive margins, the GIFR, and the Jan Mayen Fracture Zone. This would add to the continental crust already known to underlie the Jan Mayen Microcontinent Complex and Rockall Bank. Hybrid crust could potentially explain the structure of “high-velocity lower crust”, anomalous “Icelandic-type” lower crust, and exotic features of Icelandic and VPM petrology (e.g., abundant rhyolite and high-TiO2).
A coherent set of review papers summarizing the current status of work, problems and thought on these and other relevant issues is timely. On the basis of such a collection ongoing work may be designed and progressed to address remaining problems related to the structure and processes of complex crust in and around the North Atlantic and surrounding regions.
Image credit: Laurent Gernigon, Geological Survey of Norway