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Localized rifting at Chagos Bank in the India-Capricorn plate boundary zone

¹ Southampton Oceanography Centre, University of Southampton, European Way, Southampton, SO14 3ZH, UK

Chagos Bank is a region of thick crust in the central Indian Ocean where a concentration of seismicity indicates that extension is ongoing. We have modeled bathymetry and gravity data to show that the crust-mantle boundary shallows near a seabed trough, consistent with a total extension of 15 km over a zone 50 km broad. This estimate is consistent with 5–10 m.y. of deformation at the present rate of relative India-Capricorn motion; the 15 km of extension is toward the lower limit of the total extension expected from magnetic anomaly reconstructions, but would be accumulated in 1–3 m.y. in a regime having the present-day seismicity. We attribute the localization of seismicity beneath Chagos Bank to a weak rheology caused by its thick crust.

Key Words: extensional tectonics • Indian Ocean • plate boundaries • intraplate tectonics • seismicity

This article has been cited by other articles:

				K.S. Krishna, J.M. Bull, and R.A. Scrutton Early (pre-8 Ma) fault activity and temporal strain accumulation in the central Indian Ocean Geology, March 1, 2009; 37(3): 227 - 230. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]