College of Geodesy and Geomatics, Shandong University of Science and Technology, Qingdao 266590, China
2.
Key Laboratory of Submarine Geoscience, Second Institute of Oceanography, Ministry of Natural Resources, Hangzhou 310012, China
3.
School of Geomatics and Municipal Engineering, Zhejiang University of Water Resources and Electric Power, Hangzhou 310018, China
4.
Ocean College, Zhejiang University, Zhoushan 316021, China
Funds:
The National Natural Science Foundation of China under contract No. 42076078; China–Mozambique Joint Cruise under contract No. GASI-01-DLJHJ-CM.
Mozambique’s continental margin in East Africa was formed during the break-off stage of the east and west Gondwana lands. Studying the geological structure and division of continent-ocean boundary (COB) in Mozambique’s continental margin is considered of great significance to rebuild Gondwana land and understand its movement mode. Along these lines, in this work, the initial Moho was fit using the known Moho depth from reflection seismic profiles, and a 3D multi-point constrained gravity inversion was carried out. Thus, high-accuracy Moho depth and crustal thickness in the study area were acquired. According to the crustal structure distribution based on the inversion results, the continental crust at the narrowest position of the Mozambique Channel was detected. According to the analysis of the crustal thickness, the Mozambique ridge is generally oceanic crust and the COB of the whole Mozambique continental margin is divided.
Figure 1. a. Depiction of the topography and main geological structures of the study area. The white circle refers to the OBS station in the area; b. Free-air gravity anomalies in the study area, the dotted lines are magnetic anomaly strips; c. Sedimentary thickness in the study area (SB: Somalia Basin; DFZ: Davie Fracture Zone; MozC: Mozambique Channel; BH: Beira High; NNV: Northern Natal Valley; MFZ: Mozambique Fracture Zone; nMozR: north Mozambique Ridge; sMozR: south Mozambique Ridge; MB: Mozambique Basin; MadR: Madagascar Range; AG: Ariel Graben; MCP: Mozambique Coastal Plain).
Figure 3. a. Gravity effect of the sedimentary layer; b. Bouguer gravity anomaly after correction of sedimentary layer.
Figure 4. Comparison of Moho depth gravity inversion results and deep seismic data interpretation results Measuring line MZ07 (a) Measuring line 20070201 (b). The positions of the measuring lines are shown in Fig. 1. .
Figure 5. a. Moho depth in the study area; b. Crustal thickness in the study area.
Figure 6. COB distribution in Mozambique continental margin; a. north region; b. south region. The bottom map is crustal thickness.
Figure 7. Crustal thickness map of the Mozambique Channel. The brown translucent area is part of the continental crust.
Figure 8. Geological interpretation of profile AWI-20140010. a. The free-air gravity anomaly. b. The magnetic anomaly along the profile are shown. c. Geological interpretation of the profile (Mueller et al., 2016）.
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