Crustal architecture and deep structure of the Ninetyeast Ridge hotspot trail from active-source ocean bottom seismology

A 550-km-long transect across the Ninetyeast Ridge, a major Indian ocean ho tspot trail, provided seismic refraction and wide-angle refection data reco rded on 60 ocean bottom instruments. About 24 000 crustal and 15 000 upper mantle arrivals have been picked and used to derive an image of the hotspot track. Two approaches have been chosen: (i) a first-arrival tomographic in version yielding crustal properties; and (ii) forward modelling of mantle p hases revealing the structure at the crust-mantle boundary region and of th e uppermost mantle. Away from the volcanic edifice, seismic recordings show the typical phases from oceanic crust, that is, two crustal refraction bra nches (Pg), a wide-angle reflection from the crust-mantle boundary (PmP) an d a wave group turning within the upper mantle (Pn). Approaching the edific e, three additional phases have been detected. We interpret these arrivals as a wide-angle reflection from the base of material trapped under the pre- hotspot crust (Pm2P) and as a wide-angle reflection (PnP) and its associate d refraction branch (P-N) from a layered upper mantle. The resulting models indicate normal oceanic crust to the west and east of the edifice. Crustal thickness averages 6.5-7 km. Wide-angle reflections fr om both the pre-hotspot and the post-hotspot crust-mantle boundary suggest that the crust under the ridge has been bent downwards by loading the litho sphere, and hotspot volcanism has underplated the pre-existing crust with m aterial characterized by seismic velocities intermediate between those of m afic lower crustal and ultramafic upper mantle rocks (7.5-7.6 km s(-1)). In total, the crust is up to approximate to 24 km thick. The ratio between th e volume of subcrustal plutonism forming the underplate and extrusive and i ntrusive volcanism forming the edifice is about 0.7. An important observati on is that underplating continued to the east under the Wharton Basin. Duri ng the shield-building phase, however, Ninetyeast Ridge was located adjacen t to the Broken Ridge and was subsequently pulled apart along a transform f ault boundary. Therefore. underplating eastwards of the fracture zone separ ating the edifice from the Wharton Basin suggests that prolonged crustal gr owth by subcrustal plutonism occurred over millions of years after the majo r shield-building stage. This fact, however, requires mantle flow along the fossil hotspot trail. The occurrence of PnP and P-N arrivals is probably a ssociated with a layered and anisotropic upper mantle due to the preferenti al alignment of olivine crystals and may have formed by rising plume materi al which spread away under the base of the lithosphere.