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Evolution of the Walvis Ridge-Rio Grande rise hot spot system: implications for African and South American plate motions over plumes

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  • Crystallization ages of volcanic rocks, dredged or drilled from the Walvis Ridge (ten sites) and the Rio Grande Rise (one site), have been determined by the ⁴⁰Ar/³⁹Ar incremental heating technique. The fundamentally age-progressive distribution of these basement ages suggests a common hot spot source for volcanism on the island of Tristan da Cunha, along the Walvis Ridge and Rio Grande Rise, and for the formation of the continental flood basalts located in Namibia (Africa) and Brazil (South America). The Walvis Ridge-Rio Grande Rise volcanic system evolved along a section of the South Atlantic spreading-axis, as the African and South American plates migrated apart, astride, or in close proximity to, an upwelling plume. Reconstructions of the spatial relationship between the spreading-axis, the Tristan hot spot, and the evolving Walvis Ridge-Rio Grande Rise volcanic feature show that, at about 70 Ma, the spreading-axis began to migrate westward, away from the hot spot. The resulting transition to intraplate hot spot volcanism along the Walvis Ridge (and associated termination of Rio Grande Rise formation) also involved a northward migration of previously formed African seafloor over the hot spot. Rotation parameters for African motion over fixed hot spots (i.e., absolute motion) have been recalculated such that the predicted trail of the Tristan hot spot agrees with the distribution of radiometric and fossil basement ages along the Walvis Ridge. African absolute motion has been extended to the South and North American plates, by the addition of relative motion reconstruction poles.
  • Copyrighted by American Geophysical Union.
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  • Duncan, R. A., and O’Connor, J. M. (1990). Evolution of the Walvis Ridge-Rio Grande rise hot spot system: implications for African and South American plate motions over plumes. J. Geophys. Res., 95, B11, 17475-17502.
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  • 95
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