Skip to main content

Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript.

  • Letter
  • Published:

Palaeozoic oceanic crust preserved beneath the eastern Mediterranean

Nature Geoscience volume 9, pages 701–705 (2016)Cite this article

Subjects

Abstract

Subduction of oceanic crust into the mantle results in the relatively young Mesozoic–Cenozoic age of the current oceanic basins1, thus, hindering our knowledge of ancient oceanic lithospheres. Believed to be an exception, the eastern Mediterranean Sea (containing the Herodotus and Levant basins) preserves the southern margin of the Neotethyan, or older, ocean2,3,4. An exceptionally thick sedimentary cover5 and a lack of accurate magnetic anomaly data have led to contradicting views about its crustal nature and age2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9. Here I analyse total and vector magnetic anomaly data from the Herodotus Basin. I identify a long sequence of lineated magnetic anomalies, which imply that the crust is oceanic. I use the shape, or skewness, of these magnetic anomalies to constrain the timing of crustal formation and find that it formed about 340 million years ago. I suggest that this oceanic crust formed either along the Tethys spreading system, implying the Neotethys Ocean came into being earlier than previously thought, or during the amalgamation of the Pangaea Supercontinent. Finally, the transition from the rather weak and stretched continental crust found in the Levant Basin6,7,8 to the relatively strong oceanic Herodotus crust seems to guide the present-day seismicity pattern as well as the plate kinematic evolution of the region.

This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution

Access options

Buy this article

  • Purchase on Springer Link
  • Instant access to full article PDF
Buy now

Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout

Figure 1: Total-field magnetic anomalies in the Herodotus Basin.
Figure 2: Discrimination between two- and three-dimensional magnetic sources.
Figure 3: Crustal age model.
Figure 4: Tectonic map of the eastern Mediterranean.

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  1. Müller, R. D., Sdrolias, M., Gaina, C. & Roest, W. R. Age, spreading rates, and spreading asymmetry of the world’s ocean crust. Geochem. Geophys. Geosyst. 9, Q04006 (2008).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  2. Garfunkel, Z. Constraints on the origin and history of the Eastern Mediterranean basin. Tectonophysics 298, 5–35 (1998).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  3. Stampfli, G. M. & Borel, G. D. A plate tectonic model for the Paleozoic and Mesozoic constrained by dynamic plate boundaries and restored synthetic oceanic isochrons. Earth Planet. Sci. Lett. 196, 17–33 (2002).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  4. Domeier, M. & Torsvik, T. H. Plate tectonics in the late Paleozoic. Geosci. Front. 5, 303–350 (2014).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  5. de Voogd, B. et al. Two-ship deep seismic soundings in the basins of the Eastern Mediterranean Sea (Pasiphae cruise). Geophys. J. Int. 109, 536–552 (1992).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  6. Ben-Avraham, Z., Ginzburg, A., Makris, J. & Eppelbaum, L. Crustal structure of the Levant Basin, eastern Mediterranean. Tectonophysics 346, 23–43 (2002).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  7. Cowie, L. & Kusznir, N. Mapping crustal thickness and oceanic lithosphere distribution in the Eastern Mediterranean using gravity inversion. Petrol. Geosci. 18, 373–380 (2012).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  8. Netzeband, G. L. et al. The Levantine Basin—crustal structure and origin. Tectonophysics 418, 167–188 (2006).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  9. Rybakov, M., Goldshmidt, V., Hall, J. K., Ben-Avraham, Z. & Lazar, M. New insights into the sources of magnetic anomalies in the Levant. Russian Geol. Geophys. 52, 377–397 (2011).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  10. Stampfli, G., Marcoux, J. & Baud, A. Tethyan margins in space and time. Palaeogeogr. Palaeoclimatol. Palaeoecol. 87, 373–409 (1991).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  11. Stampfli, G. M. in CROP PROJECT: Deep Seismic Exploration of the Central Mediterranean and Italy (ed. Finetti, I. R.) 747–766 (Elsevier, 2005).

    Google Scholar 

  12. Garfunkel, Z. Origin of the Eastern Mediterranean basin: a reevaluation. Tectonophysics 391, 11–34 (2004).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  13. Sandwell, D. T., Müller, R. D., Smith, W. H. F., Garcia, E. & Francis, R. New global marine gravity model from CryoSat-2 and Jason-1 reveals buried tectonic structure. Science 346, 65–67 (2014).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  14. Granot, R., Cande, S. C. & Gee, J. S. The implications of long-lived asymmetry of remanent magnetization across the North Pacific fracture zones. Earth Planet. Sci. Lett. 288, 551–563 (2009).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  15. Pockalny, R. A., Smith, A. & Gente, P. Spatial and temporal variability of crustal magnetization of a slowly spreading ridge: mid-Atlantic ridge (20°–24° N). Mar. Geophys. Res. 17, 301–320 (1995).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  16. Hosford, A. et al. Crustal magnetization and accretion at the Southwest Indian Ridge near the Atlantis II fracture zone, 0–25 Ma. J. Geophys. Res. 108, 2169 (2003).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  17. Isezaki, N. A new shipboard three-component magnetometer. Geophysics 51, 1992–1998 (1986).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  18. Korenaga, J. Comprehensive analysis of marine magnetic vector anomalies. J. Geophys. Res. 100, 365–378 (1995).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  19. Torsvik, T. H. et al. Phanerozoic polar wander, palaeogeography and dynamics. Earth Sci. Rev. 114, 325–368 (2012).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  20. Schouten, H. & Cande, S. C. Paleomagnetic poles from marine magnetic anomalies. Geophys. J. R. Astron. Soc. 44, 567–575 (1976).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  21. Dyment, J., Cande, S. C. & Arkani-Hamed, J. Skewness of marine magnetic anomalies created between 85 and 40 Ma in the Indian Ocean. J. Geophys. Res. 99, 24121–24134 (1994).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  22. Ogg, J. G. in The Geologic Time Scale 2012 (eds Gradstein, F. M., Ogg, J. G., Schmitz, M. D. & Ogg, G. M.) 85–114 (Elsevier, 2012).

    Book  Google Scholar 

  23. Tari, G., Hussein, H., Novotny, B., Hannke, K. & Kohazy, R. Play types of the deep-water Matruh and Herodotus basins, NW Egypt. Petrol. Geosci. 18, 443–455 (2012).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  24. Salamon, A., Hofstetter, A., Garfunkel, Z. & Ron, H. Seismicity of the eastern Mediterranean region: perspective from the Sinai subplate. Tectonophysics 263, 293–305 (1996).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  25. Stampfli, G. M., Hochard, C., Vérard, C., Wilhem, C. & vonRaumer, J. The formation of Pangea. Tectonophysics 593, 1–19 (2013).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  26. Sengör, A. M. C. The Cimmeride orogenic system and the tectonics of Eurasia. Geol. Soc. Am. 195, 1–82 (1984).

    Google Scholar 

  27. Pastor-Galán, D., Groenewegen, T., Brouwer, D., Krijgsman, W. & Dekkers, M. J. One or two oroclines in the Variscan orogen of Iberia? Implications for Pangea amalgamation. Geology 43, 527–530 (2015).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  28. Smith, W. H. F. & Sandwell, D. T. Global sea floor topography from satellite altimetry and ship depth soundings. Science 277, 1956–1962 (1997).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  29. Gardosh, M. A., Garfunkel, Z., Druckman, Y. & Buchbinder, E. in Evolution of the Levant Margin and Western Arabia Platform Since the Mesozoic (eds Homberg, C. & Bachmann, M.) 9–36 (Geol. Soc. Spec. Publ., 341, Geological Society of London, 2010).

    Google Scholar 

  30. Argus, D. F., Gordon, R. G. & DeMets, C. Geologically current motion of 56 plates relative to the no-net-rotation reference frame. Geochem. Geophys. Geosyst. 12, Q11001 (2011).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  31. Engels, M., Barckhausen, U. & Gee, J. S. A new towed marine vector magnetometer: methods and results from a Central Pacific cruise. Geophys. J. Int. 172, 115–129 (2008).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  32. Thébault, E. et al. International Geomagnetic Reference Field: the 12th generation. Earth Planets Space 67, 67–79 (2015).

    Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgements

I thank the captain, I. Katzman, of the RV Mediterranean Explorer and the entire staff of EcoOcean. Discussions with U. Barckhausen and M. Engels are greatly appreciated. This work was funded by the Israeli Ministry of Science, Technology and Space, grant 1151. The author was supported by the European Union Seventh Framework Program (FP7/2007–2013) under grant agreement 320496 (GEOPLATE) and the Israel Science Foundation grant 1844/12.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Geological and Environmental Sciences, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Beer-Sheva 84105, Israel

    Roi Granot

Authors
  1. Roi Granot
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Roi Granot.

Ethics declarations

Competing interests

The author declares no competing financial interests.

Supplementary information

Supplementary Information

Supplementary Information (PDF 7294 kb)

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Granot, R. Palaeozoic oceanic crust preserved beneath the eastern Mediterranean. Nature Geosci 9, 701–705 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1038/ngeo2784

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/ngeo2784

This article is cited by

Search

Advanced search

Quick links

Nature Briefing

Sign up for the Nature Briefing newsletter — what matters in science, free to your inbox daily.

Get the most important science stories of the day, free in your inbox. Sign up for Nature Briefing