PIV and topographic analysis data from analogue experiments involving 3D structural inheritance and multiphase rifting

This data set includes videos depicting the surface evolution (time-lapse photographs and Particle Image Velocimetry or PIV analysis) of 38 analogue models, in five model series (A-E), simulating rift tectonics. In these experiments we examined the influence of differently oriented mantle and crustal weaknesses on rift system development during multiphase rifting (i.e. rifting involving changing divergence directions or -rates) using brittle-viscous set-ups. All experiments were performed at the Tectonic Modelling Laboratory of the University of Bern (UB).
The brittle and viscous layers, representing the upper an lower crust, were 3 cm and 1 cm thick, respectively, whereas a mantle weakness was simulated using the edge of a moving basal plate (a velocity discontinuity or VD). Crustal weaknesses were simulated using “seeds” (ridges of viscous material at the base of the brittle layers that locally weaken these brittle layers). The divergence rate for the Model A reference models was 20 mm/h so that the model duration of 2:30 h yielded a total divergence of 5 cm (so that e = 17%, given an initial model width of ca. 30 cm). Multiphase rifting model series B and C involved both a slow (10 mm/h) and fast (100 mm/h) rifting phase of 2.5 cm divergence each, for a total of 5 cm of divergence over a 2:45 h period. Multiphase rifting models series D and E had the same divergence rates (20 mm/h) as the Series A reference models, but involved both an orthogonal (α = 0˚) and oblique rifting (α = 30˚) phase of 2.5 cm divergence each, for a total of 5 cm of divergence over a 2:30 h period. In our models the divergence obliquity angle α was defined as the angle between the normal to the central model axis and the direction of divergence. The orientation and arrangements of the simulated mantle and crustal weaknesses is defined by angle θ (defined as the direction of the weakness with respect to the model axis. An overview of model parameters is provided in Table 1, and detailed descriptions of the model set-up and results, as well as the monitoring techniques can be found in Zwaan et al. (2021).