Intraoceanic active rifting revealed by deep seismic reflection imaging in the southern Bay of Bengal, northeastern Indian Ocean

Abstract

Oceanic domains form via the break-up of the continental lithosphere resulting from extensional tectonic processes that eventually create passive margins. Whether active rifting and subsequent volcanic break-up occur within the oceanic lithosphere remains ambiguous. New seismic reflection data from the southern Bay of Bengal, where multiple mantle plumes were active during the late Cretaceous, provide visual evidence for resolving this issue. The studied seismic profile reveals an ∼300-km-wide anomalous crustal domain characterized by basement highs, irregular Moho depth fluctuations, and a thick pile of well-organized upper crustal dipping reflections. These features resemble those of volcanic passive margins, i.e., stacked volcanoclastic layers, seaward-dipping reflectors, underplating and failed rifting centers. Here, we document a similar setting within an intraoceanic domain, which is consistent with the active rifting model, with an excess magma supply presumably associated with active mantle upwelling. The structures described in the present study require a multistage dynamic process during local impingement of the northward-drifting Indian oceanic lithosphere by mantle upwelling, with a transition from thermal doming, intense volcanic eruptions and magmatic underplating, to lithospheric extension and necking, and finally to an incipient but failed rift. The volcanism initiated at ∼84–85 Ma, and volcanics were emplaced on young oceanic lithosphere with an age of ∼7–8 Ma. The active mantle upwelling that promoted the intraoceanic rifting was likely driven by a weak or pulsed branch of the Kerguelen Plume, which is also involved in producing the Ninety-East Ridge. These findings help further understand the processes dominating lithospheric breakup and extend some concepts seaward from passive margins to the interior of the oceanic lithospheric domain.