Abstract
The Rio Grande Rise in the western South Atlantic Ocean has been interpreted as either an oceanic plateau related to the Tristan-Gough mantle plume, or a fragment of detached continental crust. Here we present new major and trace element data for volcanic rocks from the western and eastern Rio Grande Rise and the adjacent Jean Charcot Seamount Chain. The eastern Rio Grande Rise and older parts of the western Rio Grande Rise are comprised of tholeiitic basalt with moderately enriched trace element compositions and likely formed above the Tristan-Gough mantle plume close to the southern Mid-Atlantic Ridge. Younger alkalic lavas from the western Rio Grande Rise and the Jean Charcot Seamount Chain were formed by lower degrees of melting beneath thicker lithosphere in an intraplate setting possibly during rifting of the plateau. There is no clear geochemical evidence that remnants of continental crust are present beneath the Rio Grande Rise.
Original language | English |
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Article number | 18 |
Pages (from-to) | 1-10 |
Number of pages | 10 |
Journal | Communications Earth and Environment |
Volume | 3 |
Issue number | 1 |
Early online date | 7 Feb 2022 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - Dec 2022 |
Bibliographical note
Funding Information:We thank Captain Schmidt and his crew for their help in recovering the samples during R/V Maria S. Merian cruise MSM82. We thank M. Hertel for helping with the XRF analyses and J. Geldmacher, K. Nöbel, J. Falkenberg, S. Krumm and P. Hackspacher for dredging and assistance in the initial sample processing. Furthermore, we thank the IODP core repository for providing the rock samples from DSDP Site 516. This work was funded by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) through grant HA2568-37-1.
Funding Information:
We thank Captain Schmidt and his crew for their help in recovering the samples during R/V Maria S. Merian cruise MSM82. We thank M. Hertel for helping with the XRF analyses and J. Geldmacher, K. Nöbel, J. Falkenberg, S. Krumm and P. Hackspacher for dredging and assistance in the initial sample processing. Furthermore, we thank the IODP core repository for providing the rock samples from DSDP Site 516. This work was funded by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) through grant HA2568-37-1.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2022, The Author(s).