2017 AGU Fall Meeting https://agu.confex.com/agu/fm17/meetingapp.

cgi/Paper/292091

T31D-0650: Preliminary results on the current tectonic setting of South

Georgia Island from GPS geodetic data.

Wednesday, 13 December 2017

08:00 - 12:20
New Orleans Ernest N. Morial Convention Center - Poster Hall D-F

The South Georgia microcontinent is an allochthonous block from the south eastern part of Tierra del Fuego of South
America that has been transported over the past 80-100 My as part of the development of the Scotia Plate. While the
trajectory to its current position is poorly constrained, the microcontinent is now part of the eastern end of the North Scotia
Ridge between the South America and the Scotia Plates almost 1600 km east of its original position. Based on
bathymetric morphology and geological history of the Scotia Arc the microcontinent has been considered to be part of the
Scotia Plate, with the plate boundary continuing along the North Scotia Ridge on the north side of the microcontinent, to
the east where it transitions into the South Sandwich subduction boundary. Seismic activity in the region, while very low, is
concentrated along the southern border of the microcontinent. This seismicity has been interpreted, based on a few small
events with thrust mechanisms, to represent underthrusting and uplift of the island on a restraining bend in the North
Scotia Ridge geometry to the north-east of the microcontinent. More recently, based on the seismicity distribution, the
plate boundary has been placed along the south side of the microcontinent, suggesting that it has, or is being, transferred
to the South America plate. In order to address the current tectonic affinity of South Georgia a four station continuous
GPS network was installed on South Georgia Island to determine the block’s relative motion with respect to the South
America and Scotia Plates. The question is whether it is now attached to either plate or is an independent platelet, and
whether it is suffering internal deformation. We will present the preliminary geodetic results based on 3 years of
continuous GPS data.

Plain Language Summary

Authors
Peter Matheny * Demian Gomez
University of Memphis Ohio State University

Robert Smalley Felix Norman Teferle

University of Memphis University of Luxembourg

Ian W D Dalziel Addisu Hunegnaw

The University of Texas at University of Luxembourg
Austin
Kibrom Ebuy Abraha
Lawrence A Lawver University of Luxembourg
The University of Texas at
Austin

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2017 AGU Fall Meeting https://agu.confex.com/agu/fm17/meetingapp.cgi/Paper/292091

Day: Wednesday, 13 December 2017

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