Wondering about what happens at the interface between oceanic crust and continental crust laterally along the Mid-Ocean Ridge (i.e., not towards the continental margin, but along strike the MOR where there is a shift from ocean to continental crust; see red blobs in attached images)? It is always transform faulting? Or may other processes facilitate a "drawer-like" opening of ocean basin?
It seems like transform faulting is the right answer is some places, but not everywhere. Some escarpments are not linear and seismic data do not show any transform faults in some places.
Any paper and/or thoughts on the matter would be greatly appreciated!
Here is a paper you might find interesting from a basic tectonics perspective- basically correlating the northward continuation of the East Pacific Rise trend beneath western North America with the development of Basin and Range style continental rifting.
http://neotectonics.seismo.unr.edu/0_COURSES/Geo730-2021/Proffett77.pdf
From a more northeastern Pacific-centric perspective, fore-arc magmatism is generally understood as evidence of ridge subduction, thus another example of MOR-continent interaction.
Article Cenozoic to Recent plate configurations in the Pacific Basin...
As for the Eurasia Basin, I feel this is a unique area given the lithologic heterogeneity and complex structural history of the High Arctic in the Phanerozoic. Considering the substantial history of transform activity along the northern margin of Laurentia (e.g., see McClelland et al., 2021- url below) which the ridge intersects at a high angle, seems there would be an influence of that structural grain.
Article ’Taters versus Sliders: Evidence for a Long-Lived History of...
Hope that is an informative response to your question. Cheers.
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