ESS 101 Lecture Notes - Lecture 14: Graph Paper, Oceanic Crust, North American Plate
28 Feb 2017
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Document Summary
Intra-plate volcanism occurs in two tectonic settings within the continental lithosphere: continental flood volcanism (e. g. the snake river plain and the. Columbia river plateau) and continental rift-zone volcanism (e. g. the east africa. Two origins have been suggested for these volcanic regions. One model suggests that some of the continental flood basalts are the result of magmas generated by a hotspot underneath the continental lithosphere (e. g. the columbia river basalts). The remainder of the continental flood basalts, as well as the continental rift basalts, are believed to be related to the rifting apart of the continental lithosphere. East africa rift is one such setting in which this is actively occurring today, and it may be considered to be a young divergent plate margin: both these types of continental intra-plate volcanism produce predominantly basalts. This is somewhat surprising if one considers the continental crust through which these magmas must pass.
