Tethys

Permo-Triassic rift nucleation in East Antarctica revealed by low-temperature thermochronology

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Palaeoreconstruction map of East Gondwana at 265 Ma showing the East Antarctic margin, study area and sample locations.

Researchers collected new apatite fission-track and (U-Th)/He data across more than 5000 km of the East Antarctic margin to reconstruct its rifting history. The results show that an earlier, failed rifting episode in the Permo-Triassic period cooled and shaped the crust more strongly than the later Jurassic-Cretaceous breakup of Gondwana itself. This multi-phase rifting appears … Read more…

G-cubed: Slow Geodynamics and Fast Morphotectonics in the Far East Tethys

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How can the sluggish, long-wavelength mantle convection be expressed by so many time and space scales of morphotectonic activity? To investigate these relationships, we explore the Java-Banda subduction zone, where geodynamic records cluster. In the far-East Tethys, the exceptionally arcuate Banda subduction zone circumscribes the deepest oceanic basin on Earth, seismotectonic activity slices the upper … Read more…