See discussions, stats, and author profiles for this publication at: https://www.researchgate.

net/publication/376272911

Gravity patterns and crustal architecture of the South-Central Indian Ridge at

22°-17°S: Evidence for the asymmetric ridge accretion

Article in Journal of Asian Earth Sciences · December 2023

DOI: 10.1016/j.jseaes.2023.105966

CITATIONS READS

0 189

2 authors:

Luan Thanh Pham K. N. D. Prasad

VNU University of science, Vietnam CSIR-National Geophysical Research Institute
102 PUBLICATIONS 1,413 CITATIONS 20 PUBLICATIONS 102 CITATIONS

SEE PROFILE SEE PROFILE

All content following this page was uploaded by K. N. D. Prasad on 07 December 2023.

The user has requested enhancement of the downloaded file.

13 Gravity patterns and crustal architecture of the South-Central Indian Ridge at 22º-17ºS:
14 Evidence for the asymmetric ridge accretion

15 Luan Thanh Pham1, Korimilli Naga Durga Prasad2,*

16 1University of Science, Vietnam National University, Hanoi, Vietnam.

17 2Gravityand Magnetics Studies Group, CSIR-National Geophysical Research Institute, Uppal

18 Road, Hyderabad-500007, Telangana, India.

19 *Corresponding author email address: kndprasad28@gmail.com

20 Abstract

21 The present study examines the gravity-derived structural fabric and crustal structure beneath the
22 southern portion of the Central Indian Ridge at 22º-17ºS. We examined the structures using
23 enhanced edge detection techniques like gradient amplitude of the vertical derivative (HGVD),
24 improved horizontal tilt angle (ITDX), gradient amplitude of the NTilt (HGNTilt) and the fast
25 sigmoid function (FSED) on synthetic examples and the gravity data of the study region. The
26 gravity-derived lineaments describes the lineaments that are parallel to fracture zones trending in
27 ENE-WSW, parallel to segments/major ridge axis, near circular lineaments probably depicting
28 ascending magma sources. We estimated the depth to the gravity-derived lineaments using the
29 tilt_depth technique, which reveals the presence of lineaments with shallow source depth range at
30 2.5-7 km. The south-Central Indian Ridge is characterized by numerous lineaments with random
31 depths that shows variable spreading rates and continuous ridge jumps. The major lineament
32 depths are rooted into the lower crust beneath the major axis and the upper mantle in the region
33 away from it. In addition, gravity inversion of low-pass filtered Bouguer anomaly data is used to
34 estimate the crustal thickness. The gravity inversion shows that the Moho depth varies from 5 to
35 14.5 km, which shows thicker crust along the principal ridge axis and thinner in the surrounding
36 regions. The structural fabric in combination with the crustal thickness, depth of the lineaments,
37 age of the ridge crust, earthquake data suggests discrete minor/local ridge jumps along the major
38 ridge axis and asymmetric accretion along the ridge axis.

39 Keywords: Satellite gravity data, Edge detection, Crustal thickness, Tilt depth, Central Indian
40 Ridge, Asymmetric ridge accretion.

41 1. Introduction

42 Nowadays, satellite-based gravity data is utilized for a diverse range of purposes, such as
43 examining tectonic/geodynamic processes, conducting oil and hydrocarbon exploration and
44 unearthing the hidden structural features beneath the Earth’s surface (Ekinci et al., 2020; Sahoo et
45 al., 2022a, b). Most of the observed present-day Earth’s crust is formed at the Mid-oceanic Ridge
46 systems. These mid-oceanic ridges are the divergent spreading boundaries where systematic
47 emplacement of the melt material from the upper mantle into the crustal part through the magmatic
48 sources leads to the crustal growth at the principal ridge axis. Satellite-based gravity data sets are
49 successfully used to explain the tectonic processes involved at the mid-oceanic ridges (Lin et al.,
50 1990; Lissenberg et al., 2009). Much of the work related to ridge systems is mainly concentrated
51 in the South West Indian Ridge where much complexity exists. The knowledge of the structural

View publication stats