New evidence of the Monchique - Madeira hot spot volcanism at the Coral Patch seamount, Central Eastern Atlantic Sea
Abstract
Detailed swath bathymetry, high resolution seismic profiles and bottom sampling, collected during the SWIM 2005 and SWIM 2005 cruises, provide new data to constrain the emplacement mechanism of the Monchique-Madeira hotspot in the Central - Eastern Atlantic Sea. During last decades, although this volcanic province has been the object of several investigations, the location of hotspot track and the alignments of the volcanic centers, such as Ormonde, Ampere and Coral Patch seamounts, are still matter of debate. Several alkaline volcanic centers are recognized at Coral Patch and volcanic rocks obtained from the top of the seamount provides a radiometric (40Ar-39Ar) age of 31.4±1.98 Ma. Our data suggest that volcanism was emplaced on the top of a preexistent seamount and was strongly affected by the regional tectonic compressive regime, active on this sector of the Africa Eurasia plate boundary since Oligocene. The compression formed lithospheric scale structures acting as a reserved lane for the upwelling of mantle material during the transit of the hotspot. Lithified pelagic carbonates, infilling fissures in lava blocks and hosting planktic foraminifers, permit to date at the Chattian (24-28 Ma) the first documentation of Coral Patch acting as an offshore terrigenous-starved deep seamount. This situation protracts to recent times as shown by the occurrence of veneers of foraminifer-pteropod oozes and deep-sea mollusc-coral hash and pelagic limestones as the sole sediment types recovered from Coral Patch.
- Publication:
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AGU Fall Meeting Abstracts
- Pub Date:
- December 2009
- Bibcode:
- 2009AGUFM.V23B2067D
- Keywords:
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- 3037 MARINE GEOLOGY AND GEOPHYSICS / Oceanic hotspots and intraplate volcanism