Imaging and characterization of rifted continental margin structures using geophysical methods: seeking deeper constraints and their tectonic implications

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Canada’s submarine limits on the East Coast and in the Arctic are characterized by rifted continental margins, the products of the opening of modern oceans. Despite their territorial and economic importance due to hosting significant energy reserves, these margins remain largely underexplored and the processes that created them are not fully understood. Rifted continental margins are generally classified as magma-rich/volcanic margins or magma-poor/non-volcanic margins. Canada’s East Coast hosts both types of margins as well as the transitions between them, providing a natural laboratory for studying rifting processes and how they vary along a rifted continental margin. Great insight can also be obtained by stitching the oceans back together to study how well the conjugate margins match, how asymmetries develop, and whether those asymmetries existed long before the oceans opened. These rifting processes have a profound impact on subsequent sediment deposition and basin evolution, such that developing a better understanding of the crustal variability beneath them can reduce exploration risk and cost.