Abstract Maritime spatial planning, management of marine resources, environmental assessments and forecasting all require good seabed maps. Similarly there is a need to support the objectives to achieve Good Environmental Status in Europe's seas by 2020, set up by the European Commission's Marine Strategy Framework Directive. Hence the European Commission established the European Marine Observation and Data Network (EMODnet) programme in 2009, which is now in its fourth phase (2019–21). The programme is designed to assemble existing, but fragmented and partly inaccessible, marine data and to create contiguous and publicly available information layers which are interoperable and free of restrictions on use, and which encompass whole marine basins. The EMODnet Geology project is delivering integrated geological map products that include seabed substrates, sedimentation rates, seafloor geology, Quaternary geology, geomorphology, coastal behaviour, geological events such as submarine landslides and earthquakes, and marine mineral occurrences. Additionally, as a new product during the ongoing and preceding phase of the project, map products on submerged landscapes of the European continental shelf have been compiled at various time frames. All new map products have a resolution of 1:100 000, although finer resolution is presented where the underlying data permit. A multi-scale approach is adopted whenever possible. Numerous national seabed mapping programmes worldwide have demonstrated the necessity for proper knowledge of the seafloor. Acting on this, the European Commission established the European Marine Observation and Data Network (EMODnet) programme in 2009. The national geological survey organizations of Europe have a strong network of marine geological teams through the Marine Geology Expert Group of the association of European geological surveys (Eurogeosurveys). This network was the foundation of the EMODnet Geology consortium which today consists of the national geological surveys of Finland, the UK, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, The Netherlands, Belgium, France, Ireland, Spain, Italy, Slovenia, Croatia, Albania, Greece, Cyprus, Malta, Russia, Germany, Montenegro and Iceland, as well as marine teams of research organizations in Portugal (IPMA), Bulgaria (IO-BAS), Romania (GeoEcoMar), the UK (CEFAS), Greece (HCMR) and Ukraine (PSRGE, replaced in the fourth phase by Institute of Geological Sciences, NAS of Ukraine). The consortium is further strengthened with experts from six universities: Edge Hill University (UK), Sapienza University of Rome (Italy), University of Tartu (Estonia), University of Crete through FORTH-ICS, Institute of Marine Science and Technology of Dokuz Eylul University (Turkey), and EMCOL Research Centre of Istanbul Technical University – altogether, 30 partners and nine subcontractors. The EMODnet Geology programme is now in its fourth phase, which started in September 2019. In addition to geological information, the wider EMODnet programme aims to also bring together information from European seas on seabed habitats, physical properties, chemistry, biology, human activities and hydrography. This paper describes the EMODnet Geology project and the different end products which were delivered in the end of the third phase and will be further developed during the recent fourth phase of the project.

ABSTRACT Under fast-moving oceanic plates, the asthenosphere seismic B″ region becomes isolated from the convecting mantle by plate drag and acts as an advecting layer, which can serve as a long-lived source for intraplate volcanism. Geochemical enrichment of B″ can occur via infiltration by melts generated from the breakdown of serpentinite at ~200 km depth in subducting slabs. Ocean-island chains arise when melts generated within metasomatized B″ by shear melting and localized convection are released along lithospheric fractures controlled by the stress field of the plate. Intersection of metasomatized B″ with ocean-ridge systems produces oceanic plateaus. A strong anisotropy anomaly (V SH /V SV >1) at depths of ~150 km in the Pacific asthenosphere marks a metasomatized B″ domain that originated in the western paleo-Pacific basin in the Carboniferous, and that is now associated with Hawaiian volcanism. Metasomatized B″ can be trapped beneath orogenic belts during continental aggregation and tapped by edge-driven convection upon rifting to produce the correlation between intraplate volcanism and the fabric of sutures in opening ocean basins such as the Atlantic Ocean basin.

Abstract The tectonic evolution of Antarctica in the Mesozoic and Cenozoic eras was marked by igneous activity that formed as a result of simultaneous continental rifting and subduction processes acting during the final stages of the southward drift of Gondwana towards the South Pole. For the most part, continental rifting resulted in the progressive disintegration of the Gondwana supercontinent from Middle Jurassic times to the final isolation of Antarctica at the South Pole following the Cenozoic opening of the surrounding ocean basins, and the separation of Antarctica from South America and Australia. The initial rifting into East and West Gondwana was proceeded by emplacement of large igneous provinces preserved in present-day South America, Africa and Antarctica. Continued rifting within Antarctica did not lead to continental separation but to the development of the West Antarctic Rift System, dividing the continent into the East and West Antarctic plates, and uplift of the Transantarctic Mountains. Motion between East and West Antarctica has been accommodated by a series of discrete rifting pulses with a westward shift and concentration of the motion throughout the Cenozoic leading to crustal thinning, subsidence, elevated heat flow conditions and rift-related magmatic activity. Contemporaneous with the disintegration of Gondwana and the isolation of Antarctica, subduction processes were active along the palaeo-Pacific margin of Antarctica recorded by magmatic arcs, accretionary complexes, and forearc and back-arc basin sequences. A low in magmatic activity between 156 and 142 Ma suggests that subduction may have ceased during this time. Today, following the gradual cessation of the Antarctic rifting and surrounding subduction, the Antarctic continent is situated close to the centre of a large Antarctic Plate which, with the exception of an active margin on the northern tip of the Antarctic Peninsula, is surrounded by active spreading ridges.

Abstract The SW Pacific region consists of a succession of ridges and basins that were created by the fragmentation of Gondwana and the evolution of subduction zones since Mesozoic times. This complex geodynamic evolution shaped the geology of New Caledonia, which lies in the northern part of the Zealandia continent. Alternative tectonic models have been postulated. Most models agree that New Caledonia was situated on an active plate margin of eastern Gondwana during the Mesozoic. Extension affected the region from the Late Cretaceous to the Paleocene and models for this period vary in the location and nature of the plate boundary between the Pacific and Australian plates. Eocene regional tectonic contraction included the obduction of a mantle-derived Peridotite Nappe in New Caledonia. In one class of model, this contractional phase was controlled by an east-dipping subduction zone into which the Norfolk Ridge jammed, whereas and in a second class of model this phase corresponds to the initiation of the west-dipping Tonga–Kermadec subduction zone. Neogene tectonics of the region near New Caledonia was dominated by the eastwards retreat of Tonga–Kermadec subduction, leading to the opening of a back-arc basin east of New Caledonia, and the initiation and southwestwards advance of the New Hebrides–Vanuatu subduction zone towards New Caledonia.

Abstract The collection of high-resolution multibeam bathymetry off the tectonically controlled Tyrrhenian Calabrian margin (southern Tyrrhenian Sea) allowed us to recognize several mass-wasting processes, including shelf-indenting canyons and several landslide scars ranging over different spatial scales. In this paper, we aim to characterize two large submarine landslides (S1 and S2) affecting an area of c. 7 and 14 km 2 , respectively; both scars occur within water depths of 700–1000 m on slope gradients of 1.5−3°. S1 is interpreted as a disintegrative landslide, because most parts of the related landslide deposits were evacuated from the scar and are not recognizable on the present-day bathymetry, whereas the landslide deposits of S2 are well-preserved and mostly confined within the scar, indicating a different post-failure evolution. Based on the integration of multibeam bathymetry and single-channel seismic profiles, both the landslides are interpreted as translational failures, whereas their different post-failure behaviour has been associated with differences in material properties (inferred by headscarp morphology), depth of their failure plane and frontal confinement. We also suggest that thick contourite deposits recognized in the area may represent an important preconditioning factor for the development of these landslides, similarly to that observed in the nearby Capo Vaticano scar complex.