Project Details
Projekt
The Scandinavian mountain chain: deep processes (TopoScandiaDeep)
Applicant
Professor Dr. Joachim Ritter
Subject Area
Geophysics
Term
from 2008 to 2011
Project identifier
Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 71431489
Mountains form mostly at convergent or strike-slip margins and are not expected to form in intraplate settings. Uplift occurred, however, in various places around the northeast Atlantic after continental break-up took place in the earliest Eocene. Several dome-like structures have been identified along the continental margins in northern Europe (northern and southern Norway, Scotland), Spitzbergen, Greenland (Japsen and Chalmers, 1999; Japsen et al., 2006). Identification of uplift at the continent-ocean transition led to a number of early dynamic models relating the uplift directly to the North Atlantic rifting event at around 60 Ma (Chery et al., 1992; Clift et al., 1998). However, there is a growing body of evidence indicating that much of the observed uplift post-dates rifting by several 10’s of Ma and probably occurred in several stages (Japsen and Chalmers, 1999; Japsen et al., 2006; Rohrmann and van der Beek, 1996). Moreover, the fact that uplift is not uniform along the margins (Japsen and Chalmers, 1999; Lundin and Dore, 2002) but instead is concentrated into discrete dome-like structures suggests that there is no simple 1-to-1 correspondence between rifting and uplift. None of the suggested models (e.g. climatic forcing, emplacement of mantle plume material underneath the lithosphere, possibly in relation to the Icelandic hotspot, magmatic underplating, intraplate compression or flexural coupling to the uplifted, thinned rift itself) has firm support from existing data. In order to understand the mechanisms of Neogene uplift, we need to know how the topographic load is supported, i.e., isostatically, dynamically, or flexurally. If the support is by isostatic compensation, where is the corresponding buoyancy located? (In the crust, lithosphere, or sub-lithospheric mantle?). In this proposal, we will concentrate on analysing the two domes located in Scandinavia, the Northern and Southern Scandinavian mountain ranges (Scandes).
DFG Programme
Research Grants
International Connection
Denmark, Netherlands, Norway
