Studying the Blake Plateau

Our fieldwork aboard the R/V Marcus Langseth will generate seismic refraction, seismic reflection, bathymetric, and magnetic data. We’d like to better understand the geophysical processes that cause movement in the Blake Plateau, and whether it’s predominantly “rifting” (spreading away from a mid-ocean ridge) or “drifting” (floating in isostatic equilibrium above the molten mantle). An understanding of the present crustal dynamics of the Blake Plateau can give us insight into the Late Triassic breakup of Pangaea and the evolution of the underlying Central Atlantic Magmatic Province (CAMP).

Map of our study region

In preparation for our time at sea, Harm and I created this map of the Blake Plateau and surrounding areas. Our MCS and OBS cruise lines are the green and purple straight lines, as well as the linearly arrayed dots. Everything else is what we call “legacy data,” derived from previous fieldwork studies and a major part of how we determined our cruise path; our work at sea will ideally fill in a large gap in our current understanding of the Blake Plateau’s topography and magnetism.