Description: Highlights: • Marie Byrd Seamounts (MBS) formed off Antarctica at 65-56 Ma in an extensional regime • MBS originate from HIMU-type mantle attached at the base of the Antarctic lithosphere • Continental insulation flow transferred HIMU mantle into the oceanic mantle New radiometric age and geochemical data of volcanic rocks from the guyot-type Marie Byrd Seamounts (MBS) and the De Gerlache Seamounts and Peter I Island (Amundsen Sea) are presented. 40Ar/39Ar ages of the shield phase of three MBS are Early Cenozoic (65 to 56 Ma) and indicate formation well after creation of the Pacific-Antarctic Ridge. A Pliocene age (3.0 Ma) documents a younger phase of volcanism at one MBS and a Pleistocene age (1.8 Ma) for the submarine base of Peter I Island. Together with published data, the new age data imply that Cenozoic intraplate magmatism occurred at distinct time intervals in spatially confined areas of the Amundsen Sea, excluding an origin through a fixed mantle plume. Peter I Island appears strongly influenced by an EMII type mantle component that may reflect shallow mantle recycling of a continental raft during the final breakup of Gondwana. By contrast the Sr-Nd-Pb-Hf isotopic compositions of the MBS display a strong affinity to a HIMU type mantle source. On a regional scale the isotopic signatures overlap with those from volcanics related to the West Antarctic Rift System, and Cretaceous intraplate volcanics in and off New Zealand. We propose reactivation of the HIMU material, initially accreted to the base of continental lithosphere during the pre-rifting stage of Marie Byrd Land/Zealandia to explain intraplate volcanism in the Amundsen Sea in the absence of a long-lived hotspot. We propose continental insulation flow as the most plausible mechanism to transfer the sub-continental accreted plume material into the shallow oceanic mantle. Crustal extension at the southern boundary of the Bellingshausen Plate from about 74 to 62 Ma may have triggered adiabatic rise of the HIMU material from the base of Marie Byrd Land to form the MBS. The De Gerlache Seamounts are most likely related to a preserved zone of lithospheric weakness underneath the De Gerlache Gravity Anomaly.

Description: Highlights • Common HIMU end member in adjacent continental and oceanic volcanic provinces. • End member St. Helena HIMU derived from deep upwelling(s)/plume(s). • Plateau collision & plume interaction with Gondwana active margin causes breakup. • Hybrid volcanic-tectonic margins resulted from Zealandia – Antarctica breakup. Abstract Margins resulting from continental breakup are generally classified as volcanic (related to flood basalt volcanism from a starting plume head) or non-volcanic (caused by tectonic processes), but many margins (breakups) may actually be hybrids caused by a combination of volcanic and tectonic processes. It has been postulated that the collision of the Hikurangi Plateau with the Gondwana margin ∼110 Ma ago caused subduction to cease, followed by large-scale extension and ultimately breakoff of the Zealandia micro-continent from West Antarctica through seafloor spreading which started at ∼85 Ma. Here we report new geochemical (major and trace element and Sr-Nd-Pb-Hf isotope) data for Late Cretaceous (99-69 Ma) volcanism from Zealandia, which include the calc-alkalic, subduction-related Mount Somers (99-96 Ma) and four intraplate igneous provinces: 1) Hikurangi Seamount Province (99-88 Ma), 2) Marlborough Igneous Province (98-94 Ma), 3) Westland Igneous Province (92-69 Ma), and 4) Eastern Chatham Igneous Province (86-79 Ma). Each of the intraplate provinces forms mixing arrays on incompatible-element and isotope ratio plots between HIMU (requiring long-term high U/204Pb) and either a depleted (MORB-source) upper mantle (DM) component or enriched continental (EM) type component (located in the crust and/or upper mantle) or a mixture of both. St. Helena end member HIMU could be the common component in all four provinces. Considering the uniformity in composition of the HIMU end member despite the type of lithosphere (continental, oceanic, oceanic plateau) beneath the igneous provinces, we attribute this component to a sublithospheric source, located beneath all volcanic provinces, and thus most likely a mantle plume. We propose that the plume material rose beneath the active Gondwana margin and flowed along the subducting lithosphere beneath the Hikurangi Plateau and neighboring seafloor and through slab tears/windows beneath the Gondwana (later to become Zealandia) continental lithosphere. We conclude that both plateau collision, resulting in subduction cessation, and the opening of slab tears/windows, allowing hot asthenosphere and/or plume material to upwell to shallow depths, were important in causing the breakup of Zealandia from West Antarctica. Combined tectonic-volcanic processes are also likely to be responsible for causing breakup and the formation of other hybrid type margins.

Description: The Manihiki Plateau, a Large Igneous Province (LIP) in the western Pacific, has been proposed to be emplaced as part of the “Greater Ontong Java Event” during the early Cretaceous. Shortly after its formation, the Manihiki Plateau fragmented into multiple sub-provinces. Plate tectonic reconstructions ignore this fragmentation, treating the Manihiki Plateau as a single crustal block. By analyzing two seismic refraction/wide-angle reflection profiles crossing the two largest sub-provinces of the Manihiki Plateau, we provide new insight into their deep crustal structure and magmatic evolution. Our data indicate that the High Plateau and the Western Plateaus were emplaced as a single unit during an initial phase of massive magmatic activity, but later magmatic stages altered the individual sub-provinces considerably. The High Plateau has a crustal thickness of 20 km and its P-wave velocity distribution is comparable to previously surveyed oceanic LIPs. Strong secondary magmatic phases are visible by eruptive centers and former magmatic pathways in the middle and lower crust. The Western Plateaus, which have a crustal thickness decreasing gradually from 17.3 km (East) to 9.2 km (West), experienced smaller amounts of magmatism mainly along fault zones and on local seamounts. Therefore, we propose a distinct development of the two main sub-provinces of the Manihiki Plateau after their initial joint emplacement. The High Plateau experienced voluminous multi-phase magmatic accretion and extrusion, whereas the thinner Western Plateaus exhibit only relatively minor magmatic growth. Such a large difference in the evolution process has not been reported from any other oceanic LIP so far.