Evidence for a developing plate boundary in the western Mediterranean

Abstract

The current diffuse-strain model of the collision between Africa and Eurasia in the western Mediterranean predicts a broad region with deformation distributed among numerous faults and moderate-magnitude seismicity. However, the model is untested because most deformation occurs underwater, at poorly characterized faults of undetermined slip. Here we assess the diffuse-strain model analysing two active offshore fault systems associated with the most prominent seafloor relief in the region. We use pre-stack depth migrated seismic images to estimate, for the first time, the total Plio-Holocene slip of the right-lateral Yusuf and reverse Alboran Ridge structurally linked fault system. We show that kinematic restoration of deformational structures predicts a slip of 16 ± 4.7 km for the Alboran Ridge Fault and a minimum of 12 km for the Yusuf Fault. Thus, this fault system forms a well-defined narrow plate boundary that has absorbed most of the 24 ± 5 km Plio-Holocene Africa-Eurasia convergence and represents an underappreciated hazard.