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Fission-Track Thermochronology Applied to the Evolution of Passive Continental Margins

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Fission-Track Thermochronology and its Application to Geology

Abstract

Passive continental margins (PCMs) form at divergent plate boundaries in response to continental breakup and subsequent formation of new oceanic basins. The onshore topography of PCMs is a key component to understand the evolution of extensional settings. The classic nomenclature of PCMs is derived from early investigations that suggested apparent tectonic stability after the initial phase of rifting and breakup. However, geological and geomorphic diversity of PCMs requires more complex models of rift and post-rift evolution. Fission-track (FT) thermochronology provides appropriate tools to decipher the long-term development of PCM topography and better resolve the spatial and temporal relationships between continental erosion and sediment accumulation in adjacent offshore basins. FT datasets have revealed complex spatial and temporal denudation histories across some PCMs and have shown that several kilometres of material may be removed from the onshore margin following rifting. Combining these data with geological and geomorphological observations, and with predictions from numerical modelling, suggests that PCMs may have experienced significant post-rift activity. Case histories illustrated in this chapter include the PCM of southeastern Africa and the conjugate PCMs of the North and South Atlantic.

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Acknowledgements

We would like to thank Roderick Brown, David Chew, Kerry Gallagher, Cristina Persano and Fin Stuart for sharing their knowledge and experience in low-temperature thermochronology analysis, thermal history modelling and PCM evolution. We thank Kerry Gallagher for additional constructive comments on this work, and Peter van der Beek and Marco G. Malusà for their constructive and detailed reviews. We are grateful to Bart Hendriks for sharing databases of AFT data, to Lauren Wildman for collating data from additional sources, and to Andrea Licciardi for producing the maps for Figs. 20.5 and 20.6.

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  1. Géosciences Rennes, Université de Rennes 1, 35000, Rennes, France

    Mark Wildman & Nathan Cogné

  2. School of Earth Sciences, University of Melbourne, Victoria, 3010, Australia

    Romain Beucher

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  1. Mark Wildman
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  2. Nathan Cogné
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Correspondence to Mark Wildman .

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  1. Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences, University of Milano-Bicocca, Milan, Italy

    Marco G. Malusà

  2. Department of Earth Sciences, Syracuse University, Syracuse, New York, USA

    Paul G. Fitzgerald

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Wildman, M., Cogné, N., Beucher, R. (2019). Fission-Track Thermochronology Applied to the Evolution of Passive Continental Margins. In: Malusà, M., Fitzgerald, P. (eds) Fission-Track Thermochronology and its Application to Geology. Springer Textbooks in Earth Sciences, Geography and Environment. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-89421-8_20

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