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International audience; A new high-resolution bathymetric map combined with a regional Digital Elevation Model (DEM) analysis reveal the modalities of occurrence and emplacement of post-spreading magmatism along the NNE-SSW oriented, 1000 km long Tore-Madeira Rise (TMR) as well as its relationship with the activity of major fault systems including the Estremadura Fault System (ESF) and the Azores-Gibraltar Fracture Zone (AGFZ). Morphological and structural analysis of the bathymetric map were performed to map volcanic features such as eruptive cones, vents and fissures together with faults along the TMR. The new bathymetric map shows that the main NNW-SSE seamount alignment is formed by three structurally distinct volcanic massifs, the Tore, the Josephine and the Southern Volcanic Groups. The majority of the volcanoes of each group emplaced within or along specific portion of pre-existing faults (ESF and AGFZ) including splay fault, releasing bend, fault tips and interaction zones between different segments. Magmas were channelled into sub-vertical pre-existing lithospheric faults that acted as preferential pathways for the vertical magma ascent. Migration and final eruption of magma are controlled by the local stress variation induced by complex fault geometries, change in plate kinematics as well as strong shear zone anisotropy as suggested by the emplacement within localised areas of transtension. We conclude that post-spreading magma emplacement in the southern part of the Iberia margin was related to the development of a transtensional plate boundary between the Iberian and African Plate during the Late Cretaceous. More generally, our findings emphasize that the distribution of volcanism as the expression of the interaction between shallow plate tectonic and mantle processes should be included in plate kinematic reconstruction. This study also demonstrates that the accurate mapping of oceanic seafloor is pivotal to better understand tectono-magmatic evolution of volcanic seamount chains and geological processes in oceanic domains.

The age and origin of alkaline rocks emplaced into the sediments of the rift-related continental Lusitanian basin were investigated to constrain earliest magmatic activity occurring prior to oceanic plate formation between Iberia and Newfoundland. The U–Pb titanite ages are 146.5 ± 1.6 (2σSTERR), 145.3 ± 1.4 and 142.3 ± 1.0 Ma, and initial Pb isotopic ratios of feldspars lie at 18.418–18.978 for 206Pb/204Pb, at 15.594–15.925 for 207Pb/204Pb and at 37.105–39.216 for 208Pb/204Pb. Initial 87Sr/86Sr ratios measured in the same feldspar fractions lie at 0.705409–0.706462. This episode of magmatic activity lasting for at least 4.2 ± 2.6 Myr most likely marks a phase of maximum lithospheric thinning during which zones of weakness were created to allow deep magmas to reach the surface. Such zones are preferentially re-activated Palaeozoic faults of the Iberian plate. The isotope data suggest that the dominant volume of alkaline magmas was generated by partial melting of the metasomatized subcontinental Iberian mantle.

We conducted a detailed field and laboratory study of internal segregation structures of two hand-size pillow lavas samples. They were dredged, respectively, on the Josephine seamount, Tore-Madeira Rise (TMR), and on a small quaternary volcanic edifice located on the continental edge of the trench close to the Chile Triple Junction (CTJ). Both pillows display a combination of four types of segregation structures (spherical vesicles, pipe vesicles, vesicle cylinders, and vesicle sheets) observed so far only within subaerial basalt flows typically 2–10 m thick. In particular, the samples offer a remarkable exposure of the transition between pipe vesicles and cylinders. We show that the vesicle sheets are not generated by the same mechanism in both occurrences; they do not seem to be connected to cylinders in the CTJ pillow as they are in the TMR pillow. The two pillows are geochemically distinct, the TMR being alkaline and the CTJ calc–alkaline. Two types of internal differentiation are proposed. The first one implies the extraction of the residual liquid from the host lava and transport towards the segregation structures, whereas the other one results from in situ crystallization within one given structure. In the latter case, glass composition is highly dependant on the nature of the neighbouring crystallizing minerals. The degree of crystallization required to produce a crystal framework strong enough for generating the segregation structures seems to be lower in pillows (ca. 25% crystallization) than in vapor-differentiated basaltic lava flows (35% crystallization).

The high spectral resolution of Airborne Visible Infrared Imaging Spectrometer (AVIRIS; 224 channels from 400 to 2455 nm) and HyMap (127 channels between 437 and 2485 nm) images is necessary to conduct geological analysis with remote petrological determinations of rock types or soils, or to determine vegetation groups. When airborne images and field spectra are well adjusted between each other, and when the vegetation does not interfere in the analysis, the spectral shape analysis (SSA) method represents an easy treatment to reveal a large amount of geological information. The method presented in the paper takes into account both wells and peaks of spectra resulting from a combination of absorption features and continuum shapes. It was conducted on the Ronda peridotite, in the south-west of Spain, which was imaged by AVIRIS in 1991 and by HyMap in 2000, and which was partially sampled in the field using a GER 3700 spectrometer in 1997, 2000 and 2001. In this study, the AVIRIS and HyMap images are processe...