Rocks of the Mid-Atlantic Ridge.—Our knowledge of the lithology of the Mid-Atlantic Ridge comes from three sources: (1) rocks dredged from the sea floor, (2) detrital rock fragments found in sediment cores, and (3) rocks exposed on the islands of the Ridge.
Some of the earliest rock dredging on the Mid-Atlantic Ridge was done in 1885 by the Talisman expedition. In 1949 Furon (1949) reported the occurrence of fossil trilobites in dredge samples which had been stored for more than half a century in a French Museum. One dredging was made in the High Fractured Plateau of the eastern Atlantic at 42° 21´N., 17° 12´W., in 4255 meters depth (2330 fathoms). Furon believes that the material was in situ and therefore proof of early Paleozoic outcrops on the Mid-Atlantic Ridge. The abundant evidence of glacially rafted rocks even as far south as 30° N. casts serious doubt on this conclusion, but nevertheless the possibility that the material might have been in situ must be considered.
The Mid-Atlantic Ridge Expedition of 1947 led by Ewing made a number of successful rock-dredge hauls on the Mid-Atlantic Ridge. The most successful hauls were made in the Rift Valley and on the adjacent Rift Mountains at about 30° N. Lat. The specimens have been described by Shand (1949), who reported olivine gabbro, serpentine, basalt, and diabase. One limestone of probably Tertiary age was collected the same year but has not been described. The suite of crystalline rocks obtained is similar to those found on oceanic islands elsewhere on the Mid-Oceanic Ridge.
Crustal structure and the Mid-Atlantic Ridge provinces.—The crustal structure of the Mid-Atlantic Ridge provinces has been determined at about 20 places by the seismic-refraction technique (Fig. 35f). These studies, conducted by John I. Ewing and W. M. Ewing (in press), have shown that the average crustal structure of the crest provinces and Upper Step consists of 0.4 km of low-velocity sediment and 2.8 km of rock with a velocity of 5.1 km/sec overlying a substratum in which the velocity is 7.3 km/sec. The thickness of the layer of low-velocity sediment varies considerably from place to place. In the crest provinces the 5.1 km/sec layer is commonly exposed. In the flank provinces appreciable thicknesses (to 1 km) of sediment have been measured. The sediment seems to thicken between major scarp zones and ridges as if the sediment were collecting in longitudinal basins parallel to the axis of the ridge. An insufficient number of measurements have been made to determine whether these accumulations correlate with the boundaries of individual intermontane basins or with the limits of individual step provinces.
The structure of the abyssal floor, crest provinces, and flank provinces is compared in Figure 35. The two higher-velocity layers shown in the abyssal-floor sections (Nares and Sohm Abyssal Plain, Fig. 35), have been observed in all measurements made in these provinces. The 6.7 km/sec layer is generally considered to be gabbroic, and the 8.1 km/sec layer is by definition the earth's mantle. In the Mid-Atlantic Ridge section the upper high-velocity material has an average velocity of 5.1 km/sec and is generally identified as basaltic rock. The velocity of the underlying material (7.3 km/sec) is intermediate between the velocity of oceanic crustal rocks (6.7 km/sec) and that of mantle rocks (8.1 km/sec), as observed both beneath the continents and beneath the abyssal floor.
Ewing and Ewing (in press) suggest that this intermediate velocity is the result of a physical mixture of oceanic crustal rocks and mantle rocks. To explain such large-scale mixing they propose that extensive vulcanism and intrusion along the Mid-Atlantic Ridge have produced an intermingling of the crustal and mantle rocks, and that this was associated with convection cells in the deep mantle which supply large quantities of basaltic magma and produce extensional forces on the crust and upper mantle.
Nearly 20 crossings of the crest of the ridge have been made with the total-intensity magnetometer towed behind research vessels employing continuously recording echo sounders. A characteristic anomaly pattern has been noted by Ewing, Heezen, and Hirshman (1957). The Rift Valley is characterized by a large positive anomaly, while the adjoining Rift Mountains show negative anomalies of 300 to 500 gammas (Fig. 48).
Free-air gravity anomalies over the crest provinces and Upper Step are usually 30-50 mg positive, while the Rift Valley as measured in two places gave free-air anomalies of -3 and -20 mg.