The boundary between continental rifting and seafloor spreading in the Woodlark Basin, Papua New Guinea

Abstract: Seismic reflection, bathymetry, acoustic imagery and magnetic data are presented that encompass the boundary between rifting of the Papuan continent and westward propagating sea-floor spreading in the Woodlark Basin. West of the spreading tip, the southern margin is charac-terized by large fault blocks, which were tilted to the south on north-dipping normal faults during the current rifting phase, and graben further south where previous rifting failed. The northern margin is devoid of large offset normal faults and its subsidence from near sea level requires synrift flow of the lower crust. The margin asymmetry primarily reflects across-strike differences in the prerift geology, morphology and rheology. Horst and graben with 3 km relief below sea level occur adjacent to the spreading tip. Although heat flow data imply greater crustal thinning to the south of Moresby continental seamount, seismicity shows that deformation is currently focused on the Moresby normal fault that bounds its northern side. Based on logging results from ODP Leg 180 and semblance analysis, depth conversion of seismic reflection data show that Moresby Fault has a dip 298, which is compatible with an earthquake slip plane of 308–338. Directly east of Moresby Seamount, the first spreading segment is identified on the basis of magnetic, bathymetry and sidescan data to comprise two ring dykes in the west and Cheshir