Title |
Archaean zircons in Miocene oceanic hotspot rocks establish ancient continental crust beneath Mauritius
|
---|---|
Published in |
Nature Communications, January 2017
|
DOI | 10.1038/ncomms14086 |
Pubmed ID | |
Authors |
Lewis D. Ashwal, Michael Wiedenbeck, Trond H. Torsvik |
Abstract |
A fragment of continental crust has been postulated to underlie the young plume-related lavas of the Indian Ocean island of Mauritius based on the recovery of Proterozoic zircons from basaltic beach sands. Here we document the first U-Pb zircon ages recovered directly from 5.7 Ma Mauritian trachytic rocks. We identified concordant Archaean xenocrystic zircons ranging in age between 2.5 and 3.0 Ga within a trachyte plug that crosscuts Older Series plume-related basalts of Mauritius. Our results demonstrate the existence of ancient continental crust beneath Mauritius; based on the entire spectrum of U-Pb ages for old Mauritian zircons, we demonstrate that this ancient crust is of central-east Madagascar affinity, which is presently located ∼700 km west of Mauritius. This makes possible a detailed reconstruction of Mauritius and other Mauritian continental fragments, which once formed part of the ancient nucleus of Madagascar and southern India. |
X Demographics
Geographical breakdown
Country | Count | As % |
---|---|---|
United States | 81 | 24% |
United Kingdom | 23 | 7% |
Canada | 8 | 2% |
Brazil | 6 | 2% |
Spain | 5 | 2% |
Australia | 4 | 1% |
France | 3 | <1% |
Mexico | 3 | <1% |
South Africa | 3 | <1% |
Other | 40 | 12% |
Unknown | 156 | 47% |
Demographic breakdown
Type | Count | As % |
---|---|---|
Members of the public | 287 | 86% |
Scientists | 27 | 8% |
Practitioners (doctors, other healthcare professionals) | 10 | 3% |
Science communicators (journalists, bloggers, editors) | 8 | 2% |
Mendeley readers
Geographical breakdown
Country | Count | As % |
---|---|---|
United Kingdom | 1 | <1% |
Colombia | 1 | <1% |
United States | 1 | <1% |
Canada | 1 | <1% |
Unknown | 98 | 96% |
Demographic breakdown
Readers by professional status | Count | As % |
---|---|---|
Student > Ph. D. Student | 31 | 30% |
Researcher | 19 | 19% |
Student > Bachelor | 8 | 8% |
Student > Doctoral Student | 7 | 7% |
Student > Master | 7 | 7% |
Other | 16 | 16% |
Unknown | 14 | 14% |
Readers by discipline | Count | As % |
---|---|---|
Earth and Planetary Sciences | 53 | 52% |
Agricultural and Biological Sciences | 12 | 12% |
Environmental Science | 4 | 4% |
Engineering | 3 | 3% |
Physics and Astronomy | 2 | 2% |
Other | 6 | 6% |
Unknown | 22 | 22% |