Structural reorganization of the India-Arabia strike-slip plate boundary (Owen Fracture Zone; NW Indian Ocean) 2.4 million years ago

Mathieu Rodriguez (1) , Philippe Huchon (2) , Nicolas Chamot-Rooke (1) , Marc Fournier (3) , Matthias Delescluse (1)

1 LGENS - Laboratoire de géologie de l'ENS
2 iSTeP - Institut des Sciences de la Terre de Paris
3 iSTeP - Institut des Sciences de la Terre de Paris

The Owen Fracture Zone (OFZ) is the present-day, 800-km-long dextral India Arabia plate boundary, with conspicuous pull-apart basins at stepover areas and at its terminations. We summarize geological evidence documenting the age of formation of the OFZ, based on detailed analysis of geophysical and drilling data in the vicinity of the main pull-apart basins. Although India-Arabia motion started in the Late Cretaceous, we show that the present-day OFZ is a young structure formed at 2.4 Ma. This last structural reorganization of the India-Arabia plate boundary is unrelated to any well-documented kinematic change, leaving questions over its driver.

Mots clés: Transform fault; fracture zone; pull-apart basin; horsetail; Indian Ocean

Domaines: Planète et Univers [physics]; Sciences de la Terre

Mathieu Rodriguez, Philippe Huchon, Nicolas Chamot-Rooke, Marc Fournier, Matthias Delescluse. Structural reorganization of the India-Arabia strike-slip plate boundary (Owen Fracture Zone; NW Indian Ocean) 2.4 million years ago. Joao C. Duarte. Transform Plate Boundaries and Fracture Zones, Elsevier, pp.146-155, 2019, ⟨10.1016/B978-0-12-812064-4.00007-4⟩. ⟨hal-02326725⟩