The Moín High, East Costa Rica

Seamount, laccolith or contractional structure?

verfasst von: Christian Brandes, Allan Astorga, Jutta Winsemann
Abstract: The back-arc area of the southern Central American arc-trench system in East Costa Rica is characterized by a complex basin system. An extensional back-arc area (the North Limón Basin) and a compressional retro-arc foreland basin (the South Limón Basin) are closely related. Both basins are separated by an approximately 50 km long and 30 km wide mound-shaped structure referred to as Moín High, which evolved in Eocene times. The Moín High has previously been interpreted as a basement structure or paleo-high. The modern geothermal gradient is 3 °C/100 m. There is no evidence for thermal anomaly or higher heat flow in that area. A mean heat flow of 56-60 mW/m² implies that an origin as a volcanic seamount or magmatic intrusion is unlikely. 3D static models show that the Moín High trends NNE-SSW and has an antiformal shape in cross-section and an elliptic outline in map view. The trend of the Moín High coincides with the orientation of folds in West Costa Rica that formed in response to an Eocene deformation phase. The seismic lines show that Miocene reflectors onlap against the structure. Based on this data set it is likely that the Moín High is an anticline formed due to contraction.
Organisationseinheit(en): Institut für Geologie
AG Quartärgeologie, klastische Sedimentologie, Beckenanalyse
Externe Organisation(en): Universidad de Costa Rica
Typ: Artikel
Journal: Journal of South American Earth Sciences
Band: 28
Seiten: 1-13
Anzahl der Seiten: 13
ISSN: 0895-9811
Publikationsdatum: 07.2009
Publikationsstatus: Veröffentlicht
Peer-reviewed: Ja
ASJC Scopus Sachgebiete: Geologie, Erdoberflächenprozesse
Elektronische Version(en): https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jsames.2009.02.005 (Zugang: Unbekannt)

BibTeX

@article{79e8f71e71884220b85b68b533ec7441,
title = "The Mo{\'i}n High, East Costa Rica: Seamount, laccolith or contractional structure?",
abstract = "The back-arc area of the southern Central American arc-trench system in East Costa Rica is characterized by a complex basin system. An extensional back-arc area (the North Lim{\'o}n Basin) and a compressional retro-arc foreland basin (the South Lim{\'o}n Basin) are closely related. Both basins are separated by an approximately 50 km long and 30 km wide mound-shaped structure referred to as Mo{\'i}n High, which evolved in Eocene times. The Mo{\'i}n High has previously been interpreted as a basement structure or paleo-high. The modern geothermal gradient is 3 °C/100 m. There is no evidence for thermal anomaly or higher heat flow in that area. A mean heat flow of 56-60 mW/m2 implies that an origin as a volcanic seamount or magmatic intrusion is unlikely. 3D static models show that the Mo{\'i}n High trends NNE-SSW and has an antiformal shape in cross-section and an elliptic outline in map view. The trend of the Mo{\'i}n High coincides with the orientation of folds in West Costa Rica that formed in response to an Eocene deformation phase. The seismic lines show that Miocene reflectors onlap against the structure. Based on this data set it is likely that the Mo{\'i}n High is an anticline formed due to contraction.",
keywords = "Central America, Contractional structure, Costa Rica, Lim{\'o}n Basin, Mo{\'i}n High",
author = "Christian Brandes and Allan Astorga and Jutta Winsemann",
note = "Funding Information: The authors would like to thank the Costa Rican Ministry of Environment and Energy (MINAE) for providing the data base. Special thanks to Alvaro Aguilar and Gustavo Segura for logistic help. Financial support was provided from the German Research Foundation (DFG) Project Wi 1844/6-1 and a graduate scholarship from the University of Hannover. Seismic Micro Technology Inc. is gratefully acknowledged for the sponsoring of Kingdom Suite {\textcopyright} . We would like to thank James Kellogg for editorial work and two anonymous reviewers for their constructive and helpful reviews, which helped to improved the manuscript. Ralf Littke is greatly thanked for help with basin modelling. We would like to thank Ulrich Asprion, Stefan Back, Franz Binot, Lolita Campos, Christoph Gaedicke, Daniel Le Heron, Andreas Mende and Imke Stru{\ss} for discussion and help with seismic interpretation.",
year = "2009",
month = jul,
doi = "10.1016/j.jsames.2009.02.005",
language = "English",
volume = "28",
pages = "1--13",
journal = "Journal of South American Earth Sciences",
issn = "0895-9811",
publisher = "Elsevier BV",
number = "1",
}