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Cenozoic magmatism throughout east Africa resulting from impact of a single plume

Nature volume 395, pages 788–791 (1998)Cite this article

Abstract

The geology of northern and central Africa is characterized by broad plateaux, narrower swells and volcanism occurring from ∼45 Myr ago to the present. The greatest magma volumes occur on the >1,000-km-wide Ethiopian and east African plateaux, which are transected by the Red Sea, Gulf of Aden and east African rift systems, active since the late Oligocene epoch. Evidence for one or more mantle plumes having impinged beneath the plateaux comes from the dynamic compensation inferred from gravity studies, the generally small degrees of extension observed and the geochemistry of voluminous eruptive products1,2,3,4. Here we present a model of a single large plume impinging beneath the Ethiopian plateau that takes into account lateral flow and ponding of plume material in pre-existing zones of lithospheric thinning5. We show that this single plume can explain the distribution and timing of magmatism and uplift throughout east Africa. The thin lithosphere beneath the Mesozoic–Palaeogene rifts and passive margins of Africa and Arabia guides the lateral flow of plume material west to the Cameroon volcanic line and south to the Comoros Islands. Our results demonstrate the strong control that the lithosphere exerts on the spatial distribution of plume-related melting and magmatism.

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Figure 1: Reconstruction of the African plate at ∼45 Myr ago, before the separation of Africa and Arabia.
Figure 2: Results of plume model.

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Acknowledgements

C.J.E. completed this work while on sabbatical leave at Stanford University. We thank G. Davies for detailed comments, and M. Menzies, G. Thompson, K. Burke, C. Ruppel, T. Parsons, R. George, G. Barth and J. Cann for discussions, which improved this work.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Geophysics, Mitchell Building, Stanford University, Stanford, 94305, Califronia, USA

    C. J. Ebinger & N. H. Sleep

  2. Department of Earth Sciences, University of Leeds, LS2 9JT, Leeds, UK

    C. J. Ebinger

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  2. N. H. Sleep
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Correspondence to C. J. Ebinger.

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Ebinger, C., Sleep, N. Cenozoic magmatism throughout east Africa resulting from impact of a single plume. Nature 395, 788–791 (1998). https://doi.org/10.1038/27417

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