LONG-TERM DENUDATION OF OCEAN CRUST IN THE CENTRAL NORTH-ATLANTIC OCEAN

Near-bottom sidescan, bathymetric, and visual observations of fault sc arps in 4-24 Ma sea floor show that basaltic ocean crust undergoes ext ensive denudation that creates wide, complex scarp zones. Most denudat ion is caused by mass wasting, probably accompanied by abrasion by dis aggregated debris, In 11-24 Ma crust, trellis drainage patterns are fo rmed by deep cross-scarp canyons and intersecting scarp-parallel gulli es that appear to follow weak zones of fracturing and intracrustal wea thering, Until stabilized (e.g., by sediment burial), fault scarps wil l continue to degrade with time, yielding increasingly distorted repre sentations of apparent fault geometry in remotely sensed morphological data.