A New Type of Volcanotectonic Structure: A 42-Kilometer-Wide Deep-Sea Calderoida at the Detroit Seamount Elevation (Northwestern Pacific)

Resumo

In the northern part of the Emperor Seamount Chain, we discovered and classified a previously unknown rounded volcanotectonic 42-km deep-sea morphostructure as a calderoida (author’s terminology). It lies at depths from –2900 to –2200 m and represents a very complex structure being broken by faults into many blocks of different sizes and shapes. It is situated in the northern portion of the Detroit Seamount Elevation (NW Pacific Ocean), which is a Pliocene horst. The calderoida was formed in the Early Pleistocene at depths from –3000 to –2000 m. No analogues have been found on the Earth.