Spectral analysis of the gravity and elevation along the western Africa–Eurasia plate tectonic limit: Continental versus oceanic lithospheric folding signals

Large-scale folding is a key mechanism of lithospheric deformation and has been described in many parts of the Earth, both for the continental and oceanic lithospheres. Some aspects of this process such as the presence of coupling/decoupling between the crustal deformation and the mantle lithosphere, or between different lithospheres, make it necessary to accurately control the periodic characteristics of the elevation and of the gravity signal. 1D spectral analysis of gravity and topography profiles is sensitive to a series of factors: the location, length and orientation of the profiles, as well as the number of samples taken. We carry out a systematic analysis of the periodicities in the topography and gravity, both 1D and 2D, along the western border of the Africa-Eurasia plate tectonic boundary. We analyze the sensitivity of the 1D and 2D spectral analysis in order to compare the results along a plate boundary where oceanic and continental lithospheres are in contact with different tectonic, kinematic and rheological aspects.Our 1D spectral results indicate that the greater the profile length, the longer the wavelength peaks that are found. Nevertheless there are some periodic signals that appear in almost all the analyzed profiles: 100-250km for the N-S profiles across oceanic plate boundary and 150-250km where the plate boundary is developed over continental lithospheres. The 2D spectral analysis avoids the problems found in relation to the particular location of the profile but the resulting wavelengths are slightly higher than those obtained from the 1D spectral analysis. The wavelengths estimated for both oceanic and continental lithospheres at the Africa-Eurasia boundary (>250km) show low values of mean mantle strength (<10