Mantle plume and rift-related volcanism during the evolution of the Rio Grande Rise

Patrick A. Hoyer*, Karsten M. Haase, Marcel Regelous, John M. O’Connor, Stephan Homrighausen, Wolfram H. Geissler, Wilfried Jokat

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to JournalArticleAcademicpeer-review

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 languageEnglish
Article number18
Pages (from-to)1-10
Number of pages10
JournalCommunications Earth and Environment
Volume3
Issue number1
Early online date7 Feb 2022
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 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).

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