The SUBIMAP project encompassed a Project Managing Part, an Observational Part, a Reconstruction Part, a Geodynamic Part, a Teaching and Supervising Part, and a Communication and Outreach Part.
The Project Managing included the purchase of the equipment, the scientific and budget management, the organisation of trips and stays for scientific conferences, project meetings and Secondments, and the preparation and submission of a Data Management Plan and the Initial and Final Period Project Reports.
The Observational Part of the project based mainly on the seismo-stratigraphic and geological interpretation of compiled 2D seismic reflection profiles. We mapped tectonic and gravitational structures and the rift- and orogenic-related seismo-stratigraphic units and depocenters in order to identify styles and stages of contractional deformation and the first-order structure of the margins and basins.
Our main results along the North Iberian margin show major contractional tectonic structures affecting oceanic and transitional basement along the Continent-Ocean Transition. A southward-subducted oceanic basement separated by a megathrust from an overlying buried accretionary prism supports incipient immature aborted Alpine subduction of oceanic crust. However, we identified overthrust transitional basement that led to basement thickening, and thrust and folded transitional basement and sediments. These deformation styles affecting transitional basement may be compatible with the occurrence of modelled lithospheric shear zones or, on the contrary, with intraplate deformation. As a result, we submitted the conceptual manuscript “A unique fossilized onset of convergent tectonics in the Atlantic Ocean”. We also built a unique Bay of Biscay time cross-section that enabled the drafting of a manuscript discussing the preservation of different stages of the Wilson cycle in one location.
In the West Iberian margin, we mapped mild reactivation of pre-existing extensional faults and discrete folding and/or uplift, halokynetic-related structures along areas of the continental platform, and thrusts and folds. The distribution of newly formed thrusts and/or reactivation of pre-existing faults correlates with variations on the basement nature and/or thickness. In the NW Sulu Sea in SE Asia, mud flows and thrusting and folding affected distinctively two basin domains structured by accommodation zones that may link rift segments. As a result, we published the manuscript “Structure and Tectonic Evolution of the NW Sulu Sea (SE Asia)”. Our measurements in active propagating subduction zones in the convergent margins of SE Asia show diffuse thrusting and folding along the Continent-Ocean Transition that evolves laterally to plate decoupling, megathrust development, and formation and evolution of subduction-related structural domains during the birth of the subduction zones. As a result, we have been drafting a conceptual manuscript entitled “Subduction Initiation, Propagation and Progression recorded in the Sulu and Celebes Seas (SE Asia).
The Reconstruction Part consisted on training and development of deformable plate kinematic reconstruction aiming at understanding the temporal evolution of styles of reactivation affecting magma-poor rifted margins.
The Geodynamic Part involved training courses at the University of Mainz and an ongoing MSc thesis to run in-progress 2D thermomechanical numerical models simulating reactivation of passive margins. We used our observations along the North Iberian margin and available geophysical data to test the role of crustal thickness variations, serpentinization, and passive margin length on the development of different styles of contractional deformation at different scales.
The project investigations resulted in 4 lectures for undergraduate students, a project logo and sites on Social media, 1 published paper, 1 submitted paper, 8 presentations at international scientific meetings, 6 talks at seminars at the host institutions, and 2 media interviews.
