Displays of Seismic Sections
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Published:January 01, 1986
Abstract
Seismic section L5-7 crosses the outer forearc of the central Aleutian Ridge south of Adak Island, roughly along 175°W longitude. In this region the direction of underthrusting of the Pacific plate beneath that of the ridge is approximately 30° northwest of a direction normal to the regional trend of the Aleutian Island arc and its paralleling trench. Geomorphically, the ridge includes two provinces: the cresting massif of the island arc and the more deeply submerged forearc region about 4 km deep (see idealized structural section, p. 12). The forearc comprises the broad platform of the Aleutian Terrace and the flanking landward slope of the adjacent Aleutian Trench.
The Aleutian Ridge is constructed of three principal rock sequences. The ridge's igneous basement—the arc massif—consists mainly of extrusive and intrusive masses and related coarse volcaniclastic rubble of Eocene age (Scholl et al., in press; Vallier et al., in press). These rocks constitute the ridge's lower series. Regional information implies that lower series rocks began to accumulate between 55 and 50 Ma (early to middle Eocene). Rapid magmatic growth of the massif waned between about 45 and 40 Ma, and by at least earliest Oligocene (37 Ma) the submerged flanks of the ridge began to be buried by a thickening blanket of volcaniclastic and pelagic deposits, sandy and silty strata that constitute the ridge's middle series. Middle series sediment continued to accumulate until roughly the end of the Miocene (5 to 6 Ma), when the structural basin of the Aleutian Terrace began to
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Contents
Seismic Images of Modern Convergent Margin Tectonic Structure

In 1980, A. W. Bally assembled and edited an innovative three-volume “picture and work” atlas of seismic reflection record sections. This compilation of more than 130 excellent seismic section reproductions provided much new data from the earth's subsurface. For petroleum geologists, academic scientists, and students, it is the field geologist's counterpart of outcrops and type sections. The smaller collection of seismic sections presented in this Studies 26 publication was inspired by Bally's atlas, and follows his general format and philosophy. The objective is to provide a reference series of sections for the earth sciences and a vehicle for continuing scientific dialogue relating to modern convergent margins. This publication's assembled sections represent a single facet of that dialogue by bringing together a series of exceptional seismic sections from the fronts of presently active convergent margins around the Pacific.