Seismic Structure of the St. Paul Fracture Zone and Late Cretaceous to Mid Eocene Oceanic Crust in the Equatorial Atlantic Ocean Near 18°W

International audiencePlate tectonics separates Earth' surface into rigid plates (McKenzie & Parker, 1967; Morgan, 1968), and deformation or relative motion between plates reveals three different types of oceanic plate boundaries: (a) constructive plate boundaries at mid-ocean ridges (MOR) where new seafloor is created, (b) destructive plate boundaries at subduction zones where the oceanic lithosphere is transferred into the mantle and recycled, and (c) conservative plate boundaries and hence transform faults (TF) where the lithosphere is neither created nor destroyed as plates move past each other (Morgan, 1968). In ocean basins, transform fault