The Mechanical Nature of the Lithosphere Beneath the Eastern Central Atlantic Hotspots

Abstract

The Eastern Central Atlantic (ECA) region includes the Azores, Canary, Cape Verde, Great Meteor, and Madeira hotspots. These hotspots exhibit a large variety of characteristics and are rooted in the lithosphere ranging in age from newly created at the Mid Atlantic Ridge to Jurassic at the NW Africa Atlantic margin. Therefore, the ECA region represents an excellent scenario to investigate in an integrated way the effects of hotspots on the mechanical structure of oceanic lithosphere. Here, we calculate the effective elastic thickness (Te) of the lithosphere from an analysis of gravity and topography. Azores hotspot is characterized by a Te < 10 km, whereas the Great Meteor, Cape Verde, and Madeira hotspots have intermediate Te (15–30 km) values. In contrast, the Canary hotspot is characterized by a much higher Te (>50 km), forming the largest and most prominent mechanical feature in the ECA. All the hotspots except Canary show standard elastic thickness values when compared to average values for the same age lithosphere and to other oceanic areas in the world. The high strength of the Canary hotspot may be related to the highly depleted mantle composition in the area. The comparison between the elastic thickness distribution and the upper mantle seismic velocity structure shows no correlation between the Te estimated at the ECA hotspots (with the exception of Azores) and the presence of low shear-wave velocity anomalies in the underlying mantle. This lack of correlation suggests a negligible effect of upper mantle temperature anomalies on the flexure of the ECA region.