Roxane Mathey

PhD Student

September 2022 to September 2025

Title of the thesis: The Bay of Biscay: a cornerstone for plate tectonic.

Supervisors:

  • Autin Julia: Associate professor at ITES-EOST University of Strasbourg
  • Manatschal Gianreto: Professor at ITES-EOST University of Strasbourg

Keywords: Magma poor rifted margin, Geodynamic, Kinematic reconstruction, Seismic interpretation, Plate tectonic, Bay of Biscay and Newfoundland, Oceanic ridge, Triple junction.

Quick subject description:

My thesis is part of the ANR project FirstMove that aims to better understand processes of the poor magma rifted margins in particular of the Bay of Biscay. During the three years, I would like to propose a new kinematic model of the opening of the Bay of Biscay. Indeed, this magma poor margin undergone multiple phases of rifting and even if it is studied since decades, it still unclear how and when the opening occurs.

In order to well reconstruct the triple junction history, we have expanded the interest area to three tectonic plates: Iberia, Europe and the Newfoundland margins. Moreover, to understand the continental breakup, we would like to reconstruct from the necking to the end of the oceanic accretion.

My work is a multidisciplinary thesis. I will interpret seismic reflection lines thanks to the software Petrel. I will also gather geological and geophysical data like magnetism and gravimetry, or like hole data. I will be going back and forth between these information and kinematic model built thanks to the Gplate software.