[1] We obtained areal variations of crustal thickness, magnetic intensity, and degree of melting of the subaxial upwelling mantle at Thetis and Nereus Deeps, the two northernmost axial segments of initial oceanic crustal accretion in the Red Sea, where Arabia is separating from Africa. The initial emplacement of oceanic crust occurred at South Thetis and Central Nereus roughly $2.2 and $2 Ma, respectively, and is taking place today in the northern Thetis and southern Nereus tips. Basaltic glasses major and trace element composition suggests a rift-to-drift transition marked by magmatic activity with typical MORB signature, with no contamination by continental lithosphere, but with slight differences in mantle source composition and/ ©2012. American Geophysical Union. All Rights Reserved.1 of 29 or potential temperature between Thetis and Nereus. Eruption rate, spreading rate, magnetic intensity, crustal thickness and degree of mantle melting were highest at both Thetis and Nereus in the very initial phases of oceanic crust accretion, immediately after continental breakup, probably due to fast mantle upwelling enhanced by an initially strong horizontal thermal gradient. This is consistent with a rift model where the lower continental lithosphere has been replaced by upwelling asthenosphere before continental rupturing, implying depth-dependent extension due to decoupling between the upper and lower lithosphere with mantle-lithosphere-necking breakup before crustal-necking breakup. Independent along-axis centers of upwelling form at the rifting stage just before oceanic crust accretion, with buoyancy-driven convection within a hot, low viscosity asthenosphere. Each initial axial cell taps a different asthenospheric source and serves as nucleus for axial propagation of oceanic accretion, resulting in linear segments of spreading.

Mantle-derived serpentinites have been detected at magma-poor rifted margins and above subduction zones, where they are usually produced by fluids released from the slab to the mantle wedge. Here we show evidence of a new class of serpentinite diapirs within the external subduction system of the Calabrian Arc, derived directly from the lower plate. Mantle serpentinites rise through lithospheric faults caused by incipient rifting and the collapse of the accretionary wedge. Mantle-derived diapirism is not linked directly to subduction processes. The serpentinites, formed probably during Mesozoic Tethyan rifting, were carried below the subduction system by plate convergence; lithospheric faults driving margin segmentation act as windows through which inherited serpentinites rise to the sub-seafloor. The discovery of deep-seated seismogenic features coupled with inherited lower plate serpentinite diapirs, provides constraints on mechanisms exposing altered products of mantle peridotite at the seafloor long time after their formation.

Inversion of new high‐resolution magnetic data from the Marsili seamount and the surrounding basin in the Tyrrhenian Sea reveals NNE–SSW magnetization stripes ranging from the Matuyama chron to the Brunhes chron, including the short positive Jaramillo subchron. The detailed magnetic chronology shows that from the late Matuyama (1.77 Ma), the average half spreading rate was about 1.5 cm yr−1, with a slight decrease between the Jaramillo and the Brunhes events, when the growth of the volcanic edifice overcame lateral spreading. Analysis of spreading rate and volume of erupted lava indicates that at the beginning of the Jaramillo subchron (1.07 Ma), the Marsili basin evolved from pure horizontal spreading to a superinflated seamount as a consequence of tearing of the Ionian slab. Our data give us a snapshot of the geodynamic transition from an active backarc spreading phase to the vertical accretion of the seafloor because of a radical change in the subduction dynamics.

New multichannel seismic reflection profiles were acquired to unravel the structure of a portion of the eastern margin of the Tyrrhenian basin. This extensional feature is part of an Oligocene to Present back‐arc basin in the hangingwall of the west directed Apennines subduction system. The basin provides excellent conditions to investigate the early stage processes leading to the development of rifted passive margins and to the emplacement of oceanic crust in an oblique setting. The interpreted post‐stack‐migrated seismic profiles highlight the geometry and kinematics of the Pontine escarpment that connects the Latium‐Campania continental margin to the Vavilov basin. The latter is the main feature of the area, related to the early Pliocene extension of the Tyrrhenian Sea. Several morphological variations are pointed out along strike, mirroring different structural settings of the margin itself: a steeper margin to the north corresponds to high‐angle possibly transtensional faults, whereas a smooth slope in the southern portion corresponds to several more distributed listric faults. This work contributes to the understanding of the interplay between extensional and transtensional tectonics along the margins of an oblique back‐arc basin.

[1] We show a set of forward model equations in the Fourier domain for calculating the 3-D gravity and magnetic anomalies of a given 3-D distribution of density or magnetization. One property of the potential field equations is that they are given by convolution products, providing a very simple analytic expression in the Fourier domain. Under this assumption, the domain of the density or magnetization parameters is connected by a biunivoc relationship with the data space, and potential field anomalies can be seen as filtered versions of the corresponding density or magnetization distributions. A very fine spatial discretization can be obtained by using a large number of points within a unique 3-D grid, where both the source distributions and field data are defined. The main advantage of this formulation is that it dramatically reduces execution times, providing a very fast forward model tool useful for modeling anomalies at different altitudes. We use this method to evaluate an average magnetization of 8 A/m for the Palinuro Seamount in the Tyrrhenian Sea (southern Italy), thus performing a joint interpretation of morphological and newly acquired magnetic data.

Subduction-transform edge propagators are lithospheric tears bounding slabs and back-arc basins. The volcanism at these edges is enigmatic because it is lacking comprehensive geological and geophysical data. Here we present bathymetric, potential-field data, and direct observations of the seafloor on the 90 km long Palinuro volcanic chain overlapping the E-W striking tear of the roll-backing Ionian slab in Southern Tyrrhenian Sea. The volcanic chain includes arc-type central volcanoes and fissural, spreading-type centers emplaced along second-order shears. The volume of the volcanic chain is larger than that of the neighbor island-arc edifices and back-arc spreading center. Such large volume of magma is associated to an upwelling of the isotherms due to mantle melts upraising from the rear of the slab along the tear fault. The subduction-transform edge volcanism focuses localized spreading processes and its magnitude is underestimated. This volcanism characterizes the subduction settings associated to volcanic arcs and back-arc spreading centers.

The 500 m.y. cycle whereby continents assemble in a single supercontinent and then fragment and disperse again involves the rupturing of a continent and the birth of a new ocean, with the formation of passive plate margins. This process is well displayed today in the Red Sea, where Arabia is separating from Africa. We carried out geophysical surveys and bottom rock sampling in the two Red Sea northernmost axial segments of initial oceanic crust accretion, Thetis and Nereus. Areal variations of crustal thickness, magnetic intensity, and degree of melting of the subaxial upwelling mantle reveal an initial burst of active oceanic crust generation and rapid seafl oor spreading below each cell, occurring as soon as the lid of continental lithosphere breaks. This initial pulse may be caused by edge-driven subrift mantle convection, triggered by a strong horizontal thermal gradient between the cold continental lithosphere and the hot ascending asthenosphere. The thermal gradient weakens as the oceanic rift widens; therefore the initial active pulse fades into steady, more passive crustal accretion, with slower spreading and along axis rift propagation

S U M M A R YNew high-resolution bathymetric and magnetic data from the western Aeolian sector, southern Tyrrhenian Sea, provide insights into structural and volcanic development of the area, suggesting a strong interaction between volcanism and tectonics. The analysis of these data combined with relocated earthquake distribution, focal plane solutions and strain rate evaluation indicates that the dextral strike-slip Sisifo-Alicudi shear zone is a complex and wide area of active deformation, representing the superficial expression of the deep seated lithospheric tear fault separating the subduction slab below Sicily and Calabria. Most of the observed volcanic features are aligned along a NW-SE trend, such as the Filicudi island-Alicudi North Seamount and Eolo-Enarete alignments, and are dissected by hundred-metre-high scarps along conjugate NNE-SSW trending fault systems. The magnetic field pattern matches the main trends of volcanic features. Spectral analysis and Euler deconvolution of magnetic anomalies show the existence of both deep and shallow sources. High-amplitude, high-frequency anomalies due to shallow sources are dominant close to the volcanic edifices of Alicudi and Filicudi, while the main contribution on the surrounding Eolo, Enarete, Alicudi North and Filicudi North seamounts is given by low-amplitude anomalies and/or deeper magnetic sources. This is probably related to different ages of the volcanic rocks, although hydrothermal processes may have played an important role in blanketing magnetic anomalies, in particular at Enarete and Eolo seamounts. Relative chronology of the eruptive centres and the inferred deformation pattern outline the Quaternary evolution of the western Aeolian Arc: Sisifo, Alicudi North and Filicudi North seamounts might have developed in an early stage, following the Late Pliocene-Early Pleistocene SE-ward migration of arc-related volcanism due to the Ionian subduction hinge retreat; Eolo, Enarete and Filicudi represent later manifestations that led volcanoes to develop during Mid-Late Pleistocene, when the stress regime in the area changed, due to the SSE-ward propagation of the subduction slab tear fault and the consequent reorientation and decrease of trench migration velocity. Finally, volcanic activity occurred in a very short time span at Alicudi, where an almost conical volcanic edifice emerged, suggesting negligible interactions with regional fault systems.