Reply to comment on ‘Paleokarst on the top of the Maokou Formation: further evidence for domal crustal uplift prior to the Emeishan flood volcanism’ by Bin He, Yi-Gang Xu, Jun-Peng Guan & Yu-Ting Zhong, Lithos 119 1–9, 2010

Giant radiating mafic dyke swarm of the Emeishan Large Igneous Province: Identifying the mantle plume centre

“…Their observations have cast doubt on the existence of any pre‐eruptive uplift, and even on the Emeishan mantle plume model, although the presence of associated rifting, and local down‐dropping of blocks, could explain their observations (e.g. He et al ., ; see later discussion). The trends of dyke swarms and their distributions provide an opportunity to further test the plume model for the ELIP.…”

“…Thus, we infer that the above descriptions can be accommodated in the mantle plume hypothesis (Griffiths and Campbell, ). In other words, uplift will lead to the unconformities on the top of the Maokou Fm., whereas the ‘hydromagmatic deposits’ could be localized in the rift basins caused by the subsequent localized subsidence (Song et al ., ; see also He et al ., ).…”

“…As noted above, the giant mafic dyke swarms, which are contemporaneous and co‐magmatic with the Emeishan basalts, are composed of six sub‐swarms that converge at the Yongren area, Yunnan Province, indicating the position above the centre of the head of the mantle plume responsible for the ELIP. Importantly, this position is identical to the location of the maximum crustal uplift obtained by delineating the differential erosion zones, which resulted from a large amount of regional lithospheric uplift immediately preceding the Emeishan flood volcanism (He et al ., , , , ; Xu et al ., ). Recently, the differential erosion zones have been confirmed via the residual gravity and density model of the ELIP, with a higher density anomaly (+0.06 g cm −3 ) in the inner zone than in the middle (+0.04 g cm −3 ) and outer (+0.03 g cm −3 ) zones (Deng et al ., ).…”

“…Shellnutt, ; and references therein). Key evidence has been proposed to support a mantle plume origin, such as the presence of high magnesian picrites (Zhang et al ., ,b) and domal uplift shortly before volcanism (He et al ., , , , ), among other features. However, Ukstins‐Peate and Bryan (, ) recognized voluminous mafic hydromagmatic deposits and submarine extrusions, indicative of emplacement at or below sea‐level, at Daqiao and Binchuan, which are immediately adjacent to the ‘inner’ (maximum uplift) zone of the ELIP (defined by He et al ., ).…”