Kerguelen Plateau, Southern Indian Ocean: Geologic History of a Large Igneous .
The Kerguelen Plateau is an upraised region of the seafloor that is located in the southern Indian Ocean. Up until 1988 little was known about this underwater plateau except for the hypothesis of scientists" that believed this plateau had been formed by volcanic eruptions, and at one point in history actually existed above-sea-level heights. It was not until a drilling operation, conducted by Ocean Drilling Program (ODP) drill ship JOIDES visited the Kerguelen Plateau that those hypothesis were proven accurate.
A Large Igneous Providence (LIP) is formed when magma wells up from deep beneath Earth's surface and forms molten rock. Scientist's discovered through drilling that there is not a specific time period that it takes an (LIP) to form, but rather different parts of an (LIP) can form at different times. For example, with the Kerguelen Plateau rock samples taken from different areas proved that some were as old as 110 million years, where as samples taken from other areas were only 35 million years old. Evidence recovered showed that the Kerguelen Plateau was once above sea-level, but became submerged over millions of years. Examples of other (LIPS) are Hawaii and Iceland. Hot spots are thought to be connected to a stable pattern of upwardly flowing pumes of warmer than average material from deep levels of the mantle. (LIPS) are extremely important for many reasons, in the case of the Kerguelen Plateau the most important is that by studying the Plateau scientists can get a direct and simple form of reference to reconstruct plate motions during the opening of the Indian Ocean.
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The Kerguelen Plateau lies in the remote sub Antarctic region of the Indian Ocean. At 2500 kilometers in length, the Kerguelen Plateau resembles Argentina in size and length. The Plateau was not formed by one massive volcanic event, but rather several intense episodes of volcanic eruptions.