Project information
Project aim
Mantle plumes are cylinders of buoyant hot rock that rise from the deep Earth. Active since ~135 million years ago, the Kerguelen plume is thought to be the magma source of Australia's active hot spot volcanoes, Heard and McDonald islands on the central Kerguelen Plateau in the Southern Ocean. This project will test controversial models of plume dynamics to explain the complex spatial, temporal, petrological, and geochemical patterns of central Kerguelen Plateau volcanism in the last 30 million years. The outcomes will be new insights into the dynamics and timescales of plume volcanism with global implications for both active and ancient mantle plumes.
Project milestones
Summary of the project achievements 2021/22
Big Ben on Heard Island in the Australian Antarctic Territory is an active volcano. Big Ben is the current volcanic edifice on the Kerguelen Plateau, which is a submarine ~2000km x 600km plateau that has been built over the last 100 million years from volcanic eruptions. A plume of hot magma from the deep Earth has fed these volcanic eruptions. Big Ben is rarely visited with < 10 scientific visits in the last 50 years. In this project we collected all Heard Island rocks in scientific collections and/or their information and metadata, and digitised Heard Island data and photos that were only available in analogue and outdated digital format.
With these data, samples and analytical research we have prepared a new up to date geological map of Heard Island. Further, we have analysed rock samples to address outstanding scientific questions related to the formation of Heard Island and it's eruptive history over the last 35 million years.
Scientific outcomes of our project include insights into deep earth processes that transport magma to the surface.
Our data and sample collection are available for scientists all over the world to address further multidisciplinary questions about this poorly understood region of the world.
Summary of the season 2020/21
Heard Island is an active volcano in Australia's Antarctic Territory. The geological history of this volcano is poorly known, but exiting samples suggest a hiatus of volcanic activity between 11-22 million years ago. In year two of this project, we have found critical rock samples to address this question and are conducting the analytical research in order to determine whether this hiatus is real, and if so, whether volcanism moved elsewhere on the Kerguelen Plateau during this time. We expect the age dating results to be available in year 3.