Combined analyses of deep tow magnetic anomalies and International Ocean Discovery Program Expedition 349 cores show that initial seafloor spreading started around 33 Ma in the northeastern South China Sea (SCS), but varied slightly by 1-2 Myr along the northern continent-ocean boundary (COB). A southward ridge jump of 20 km occurred around 23.6 Ma in the East Subbasin; this timing also slightly varied along the ridge and was coeval to the onset of seafloor spreading in the Southwest Subbasin, which propagated for about 400 km southwestward from 23.6 to 21.5 Ma. The terminal age of seafloor spreading is 15 Ma in the East Subbasin and 16 Ma in the Southwest Subbasin. The full spreading rate in the East Subbasin varied largely from 20 to 80 km/Myr, but mostly decreased with time except for the period between 26.0 Ma and the ridge jump (23.6 Ma), within which the rate was the fastest at 70 km/ Myr on average. The spreading rates are not correlated, in most cases, to magnetic anomaly amplitudes that reflect basement magnetization contrasts. Shipboard magnetic measurements reveal at least one magnetic reversal in the top 100 m of basaltic layers, in addition to large vertical intensity variations. These complexities are caused by late-stage lava flows that are magnetized in a different polarity from the primary basaltic layer emplaced during the main phase of crustal accretion. Deep tow magnetic modeling also reveals this smearing in basement magnetizations by incorporating a contamination coefficient of 0.5, which partly alleviates the problem of assuming a magnetic blocking model of constant thickness and

First active hydrothermal vents on an ultraslow-spreading center: Southwest Email alerting services articles cite this article to receive free e-mail alerts when new www.gsapubs.org/cgi/alerts click Subscribe to subscribe to Geology www.gsapubs.org/subscriptions/ click Permission request to contact GSA http://www.geosociety.org/pubs/copyrt.htm#gsa click official positions of the Society. citizenship, gender, religion, or political viewpoint. Opinions presented in this publication do not reflect presentation of diverse opinions and positions by scientists worldwide, regardless of their race, includes a reference to the article's full citation. GSA provides this and other forums for the the abstracts only of their articles on their own or their organization's Web site providing the posting to further education and science. This file may not be posted to any Web site, but authors may post works and to make unlimited copies of items in GSA's journals for noncommercial use in classrooms requests to GSA, to use a single figure, a single table, and/or a brief paragraph of text in subsequent their employment. Individual scientists are hereby granted permission, without fees or further

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This paper deals with high resolution surface wave tomography in East Asia andWest Pacific marginal sea (60°E–160°E, 20°S–60°N). According to approximately 12 000 long‐period digital seismic waveforms from 650 events (7.0 ≥ M ≥5.0) recorded by 58 digital seismic stations from CDSN, GSN, GDSN, and GEOSCOPE network in Eurasia and West Pacific regions, 4 400 accurate surface wave dispersion curves with periods ranging from 8 to 250 seconds were selected and employed for inversion. The high resolution 3‐D shear wave velocity images in this area were constructed by inversion of both dispersion and waveform showing a notable lateral variation in the crust and upper mantle. The images of shear wave velocity indicate that from upper crust to the depth of 70 km, high velocities are displayed in the eastern part of East Asia and West Pacific marginal seas, in contrast, extreme low velocities are illustrated in the Qinghai‐Xizang Plateau and its surrounding areas. There exists a boundary of velocity decrease along the Mountain belt from Da‐Hingganling to Taihangshan, Wulinshan, which coincides with the gravity gradient belt in NNE‐SSW trend in East China. The low velocity anomaly chains are located along the convergence belt of Tethys from Mediterranean Sea, through Turkey, Iran, Himalayan orogens, Burma to Indonesian islands. The evolution and geodynamic processes are so different between the eastern part and western part of East Asia and West Pacific marginal seas separated by longitude 110°E. The western part has a thickening convergent lithosphere caused by Indian subcontinent colliding with the Eurasian continent. The eastern part is disassembling causing the lithosphere thinning and extension from asthenospheric material intrusion.

Inversion of near‐bottom magnetic data reveals a well‐defined low crustal magnetization zone (LMZ) near a local topographic high (37°47′S, 49°39′E) on the ultraslow‐spreading Southwest Indian Ridge (SWIR). The magnetic data were collected by the autonomous underwater vehicle ABE on board R/V DaYangYiHao in February‐March 2007. The first active hydrothermal vent field observed on the SWIR is located in Area A within and adjacent to the LMZ at the local topographic high, implying that this LMZ may be the result of hydrothermal alteration of magnetic minerals. The maximum reduction in crustal magnetization is 3 A/M. The spatial extent of the LMZ is estimated to be at least 6.7 × 104 m2, which is larger than that of the LMZs at the TAG vent field on the Mid‐Atlantic Ridge (MAR), as well as the Relict Field, Bastille, Dante‐Grotto, and New Field vent‐sites on the Juan de Fuca Ridge (JdF). The calculated magnetic moment, i.e., the product of the spatial extent and amplitude of crustal magnetization reduction is at least −3 × 107 Am2 for the LMZ on the SWIR, while that for the TAG field on the MAR is −8 × 107 Am2 and that for the four individual vent fields on the JdF range from −5 × 107 to −3 × 107 Am2. Together these results indicate that crustal demagnetization is a common feature of basalt‐hosted hydrothermal vent fields at mid‐ocean ridges of all spreading rates. Furthermore, the crustal demagnetization of the Area A on the ultraslow‐spreading SWIR is comparable in strength to that of the TAG area on the slow‐spreading MAR.

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