Earth Planet. Sci. Lett., 203, 635-650, 2002.
Paleolatitudes of the Kerguelen hotspot: new paleomagnetic results and dynamic modeling
Maria Antretter, Bernhard Steinberger, Franz Heider and Heinrich Soffel
Abstract
The Kerguelen Plateau, a Large Igneous Province in the southern Indian Ocean, was formed as a product of the Kerguelen hotspot in several eruptive phases during the
last 120 Myr. We obtained new paleolatitudes for the central and northern Kerguelen Plateau from paleomagnetic investigations on basalts, which were drilled during
ODP Leg 183 to the Kerguelen Plateau-Broken Ridge. The paleolatitudes coincide with paleolatitudes from previous investigations at the Kerguelen Plateau and
Ninetyeast Ridge (the track of the Kerguelen hotspot) and indicate a difference between paleolatitudes and present position at 49°S of the Kerguelen hotspot. We show
that true polar wander, the global motion between the mantle and the rotation axis, cannot explain this difference in latitudes. We present numerical model results of plume
conduit motion in a large-scale mantle flow and the resulting surface hotspot motion. A large number of models all predict southward motion between 3° and 10° for the
Kerguelen hotspot during the last 100 Myr, which is consistent with our paleomagnetic results.