Greater Kerguelen large igneous province reveals no role for Kerguelen mantle plume in the continental breakup of eastern Gondwana

Early Cretaceous subsidence of the Naturaliste Plateau defined by a new record of volcaniclastic-rich sequence at IODP Site U1513

“…Previous works suggest that contemporaneous volcanism along the rifted margins of Greater India (Comei-Cona) and Australia (Bunbury Basalt), together with that on the Naturaliste Plateau ( Fig. 2A) formed the 136-124 Ma Large Igneous Province (Direen et al, 2017;Olierook et al, 2016Olierook et al, , 2017Olierook et al, , 2019bWatson et al, 2016;Zhu et al, 2009). The scattered mafic rocks across the margins have been explained by either disconnected limbs of the Kerguelen plume or multiple mantle plumes (Coffin et al, 2002; J o u r n a l P r e -p r o o f Kerguelen plume and/or other plume(s) could account for the relatively shallow depths of the Naturaliste Plateau during the late Barremian through early Aptian.…”

“…It resulted from the westward migration of the Kerguelen plume relative to the southwest Australian margin and associated relocation of spreading center and ridge jumps during the opening of Indian Ocean ( Fig. 2B; Gibbons et al, 2012;Olierook et al, 2017Olierook et al, , 2019bWatson et al, 2016). The relative westward migration of the Kerguelen plume could have removed the thermal buoyancy support on the rifted margin, which triggered the thermal relaxation of thinned lithosphere and the thermal subsidence.…”

Evolution of the Southwest Australian Rifted Continental Margin During Breakup of East Gondwana: Results From International Ocean Discovery Program Expedition 369

“…On the southern part of the margin, a structural high underlain by continental crust Ogg et al (2016) Malinverno et al 2012This study a Gibbons et al (2013) This study a Bodin et al (2006) from M1n to M0r and of Martinez et al (2013) from M10Nn.2n to M11r as shown in Table 2. The base of chron M0r is assigned to the middle of the last ammonite zone of the Barremian stage as indicated by chemo-and biostratigraphic data of Frau et al (2018), giving an age that corresponds to the youngest age assessed by and Olierook, Jiang et al (2019).…”

“…Alternatively, the Kerguelen plume may have fragmented or segregated into spatially distinct rising limbs, thus accounting for the broad and irregular distribution of the volcanic rocks (Coffin et al., 2002). Lastly, isotopic data suggesting a mixture of both depleted and enriched sources have been interpreted to indicate derivation from sources in the depleted asthenospheric mantle combined with either sublithospheric mantle (Olierook et al., 2016) or lithospheric mantle (Olierook, Jiang et al., 2019) that was enriched in incompatible elements during the Late Proterozoic assembly of East Gondwana. Thus, the relationship between plumes and Early Cretaceous basalts in the eastern Indian Ocean remains uncertain.…”

Publisher’s Note

“…1). The processes that initiate the dispersal of these large continental accumulations remain controversial (Santosh et al, 2009;Audet and Bürgmann, 2011;Murphy and Nance, 2013;Nance et al, 2014;Petersen and Schiffer, 2016;Peace et al, 2017a;Petersen et al, 2018;Schiffer et al, 2018;Olierook et al, 2019). The debate primarily revolves around whether continental dispersal is driven by deep-rooted thermal anomalies (Morgan-type mantle plumes) or shallow plate tectonic processes (Storey, 1995;Dalziel et al, 2000;Beutel et al, 2005;Frizon De Lamotte et al, 2015;Pirajno and Santosh, 2015;Yeh and Shellnutt, 2016;Keppie, 2016;Petersen et al, 2018;Heron, 2018).…”