Jie Chen

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• PhD in Marine Geoscience
• Postdoc at Ecole Normale Supérieure de Paris

Oceanic detachment faults play a central role in accommodating the plate divergence at slow-ultraslow spreading mid-ocean ridges. Successive flip-flop detachment faults in a nearly-amagmatic region of the ultraslow spreading Southwest Indian Ridge (SWIR) at 64°30’E accommodate ~100% of plate divergence, with mostly ultramafic smooth seafloor. Here...

The ocean, as a vast interconnected body of water on Earth, plays an essential role in Earth’s planetary dynamics, climate change, and the evolution of human society and decision-making processes. An ocean-focused global map is necessary to visually capture numerous phenomena within the world’s ocean and seafloor. Here we present the power of the S...

The thermal state of mid-ocean ridges exerts a crucial modulation on seafloor spreading processes that shape ~2/3 of our planet's surface. Standard thermal models treat the ridge axis as a steady-state boundary layer between the hydrosphere and asthenosphere, whose thermal structure primarily reflects the local spreading rate. This framework explai...

At fast-spreading centers, faults develop within the axial summit trough (AST; 0 to 250 m around the axis) primarily by diking-induced deformation originating from the axial magma lens (AML). The formation of the prominent abyssal-hill-bounding faults beyond the axial high (>2,000 m) is typically associated with the unbending of the lithosphere as...

Fault scarps at Mid-Ocean Ridges (MOR) are recognizable on the seafloor, and often measured to estimate the tectonic component of plate divergence. This estimate, based on linear fault scarp parameters, is referred to here as apparent tectonic strain (ATS). However, ATS may differ from the actual tectonic strain at a lithosphere scale. This is clea...

Hydrothermal convection in young oceanic lithosphere accounts for ~25% of the total global heat flow, and thus plays a critical role in Earth's thermal evolution. The permeability structure of the lithosphere is a key factor governing how efficiently heat tapped from magma bodies or hot upwelling mantle can be transferred to the overlying ocean. Dr...

Plain Language Summary This study explores how continents break apart, focusing on the north‐eastern Gulf of Aden, where the continental crust stretched and thinned to form a new ocean. Using 3‐D seismic data, we examined changes in crustal thickness and structure during this process. We found a 45° angle (obliquity) between directions of crustal t...

Crustal accretion at mid-ocean ridges governs the creation and evolution of the oceanic lithosphere. Generally accepted models1–4 of passive mantle upwelling and melting predict notably decreased crustal thickness at a spreading rate of less than 20 mm year⁻¹. We conducted the first, to our knowledge, high-resolution ocean-bottom seismometer (OBS)...

Mid-ocean ridges host the most extensive magmatic system on Earth, where ~60% of the lithosphere is formed. Fast spreading segments such as the East Pacific Rise (EPR) 9º50’N (full spreading rate >80 mm/yr) represent only ~20% of the global ridge network, but contribute ~50% of the total oceanic crustal accretion. At these ridge segments, magma acc...

Continental rifting is the Earth’s fundamental tectonic process that may result in a new plate boundary, i.e., mid-ocean ridges, with the accretion of new oceanic crust. At present, continental rifted margins are classified into two end-members based on the amount of magmatism that occurred during the rifting process: magma-rich and magma-poor. How...

Fault scarps at Mid-Ocean Ridges (MOR) are well recognized on the seafloor and often measured to estimate the tectonic component of plate spreading. However, tectonic strain estimates based on the dimensions of fault scarps that can be traced on seafloor topographic maps (which we refer to as apparent tectonic strain) differ from the actual whole t...

Magmatic and tectonic processes in the formation of oceanic lithosphere at slow–ultraslow-spreading mid-ocean ridges (MORs) are more complicated relative to faster-spreading ridges, as their melt flux is overall low, with highly spatial and temporal variations. Here, we use the teleseismic catalog of magnitudes over 4 between 1995 and 2020 from the...

This is the reports of the thesis defense

The Indomed-Gallieni supersegment (46-52°E) of the Southwest Indian Ridge (SWIR) has been of interest as a melt-rich endmember of ultraslow spreading mid-ocean ridges, attributed to enhanced magmatism since 11 Ma. This provides an excellent opportunity to study the evolution and the impact of enhanced magmatism at mid-ocean ridges. Here we combine...

Polymetallic sulfides present in mid-ocean ridges (MORs) have become important strategic resources for humans, and a scientific metallogenic model is necessary for the investigation and exploration of these resources. Compared to fast-and slow-spreading MORs, ultraslow-spreading MORs show substantial differences in magma supply, tectonic activity,...

The Gakkel Ridge is the slowest spreading Mid-Ocean Ridge (MOR) with a decreased full spreading rate of 14.6 to 6.3 km/Ma from the west to the east. However, this ridge is in the hard-to-access Arctic Ocean with extensive ice, which limits our understanding of the full spectrum of the MOR lithosphere structure. In the summer of 2021, the JASMInE (J...

The thermal regime of mid-ocean ridges (MORs) is shaped by a dynamic heat balance between heat supplied by magma cooling and crystallization, and heat loss by hydrothermal circulation. Given a global average crustal thickness of 6 km, standard thermal models predict that the thermal state of MORs drastically cools as the full spreading rate decreas...

Melt supply at slow‐ultraslow spreading ridges is overall reduced and highly variable. Magma cooling and crystallization substantially shape the axial thermal regime by providing heat that is lost to the ocean through conduction and hydrothermal convection. Geological data suggest that melt is emplaced over a wide depth range, variably accessible t...

Melt supply at slow spreading ridges has been shown to vary from enough to produce a fully volcanic seafloor, to nearly amagmatic, leading to the widespread exposure of mantle-derived rocks on the seafloor. To better understand the role of melt supply, I study two regions of the ultraslow spreading Southwest Indian Ridge (SWIR) that are endmembers...

Melt supply at the ultraslow‐spreading Southwest Indian Ridge (SWIR) has been shown to vary from nearly amagmatic, leading to ultramafic seafloor, to magmatically robust, producing fully volcanic seafloor. The center of the SWIR 50°28′E segment represents a magmatically robust endmember. High‐resolution bathymetry and backscatter, near‐bottom magne...

The recently explored inactive Tianzuo hydrothermal field, in the amagmatic segment of the ultraslow-spreading Southwest Indian Ridge (SWIR), is closely associated with detachment faults. In this site, sulfide minerals are hosted by serpentine-bearing ultramafic rocks and include high-temperature (isocubanite, sphalerite, and minor pyrrhotite) and...

The recently explored Tianzuo hydrothermal field in serpentinized ultramafic rocks of the amagmatic segment of the ultraslow-spreading Southwest Indian Ridge displays high-temperature sulfide mineralization (isocubanite, sphalerite, and minor pyrrho-tite) and low-temperature (pyrite and covellite) phases. Pyrite can be subdivided into pyrite-I and-...

The eastern Southwest Indian Ridge (SWIR) is characterized by low melt supply and this melt is focused on axial volcanos, so that the intervening regions of the ridge spread in a nearly amagmatic fashion, producing extensive ultramafic seafloor and flip-flop detachment faults (Cannat et al., 2006; Sauter et al., 2013). Schlindwein and Schmid (2016)...

Seafloor hydrothermal venting fields occur on all ocean spreading ridges (OSRs) regardless of spreading rates. However, the distribution of seafloor hydrothermal activity such as frequency and spacing on ultraslow-spreading OSRs are poorly known. Chinese Dayang cruises from 2015 to 2016 conducted detailed water column surveys for seafloor hydrother...

780-thousand years of volcanic seafloor accretion at a melt-rich segment of the ultraslow-spreading Southwest Indian Ridge 50°28'E

The ultraslow-spreading Southwest Indian Ridge (SWIR) to the east of the Melville fracture zone is characterized by very low melt supply and intensive tectonic activity. Due to its weak thermal budget and extremely slow spreading rate, the easternmost SWIR was considered to be devoid of hydrothermal activity until the discovery of the inactive Mt....