Gondwana, flood basalts

Hergt J. M., Peate D. W., and Hawkesworth C. J. (1991) The petrogenesis of Mesozoic Gondwana low-Ti flood basalts. Earth Planet. Sci. Lett. 105, 134-148. 

These considerations remind us that the Transantarctic Mountains did not exist during the Permian glaciation of the East Antarctic craton and that the eventual uplift of the mountains may have between initiated by large-scale rifting of Gondwana which was accompanied by the eruption of flood basalts during the Jurassic Period. 

The widespread occurrence of continental flood basalt and comagmatic dolerite sills/dikes of Middle Jurassic to Early Cretaceous age in Gondwana... 

Fig. 13.39 The magmatic activity that was initiated by the rifting of Gondwana during the Mesozoic Era occurred in a belt that now extends across four continents of the southern hemisphere. The chemical and isotopic compositions of the resulting continental flood basalts and intrusives depend on the make-up of the...

Fig. 14.1 Queen (or Dronning) Maud Land is located in East Antarctica along the east coast of the Weddell Sea. It is not considered to be an extension of the Transantarctic Mountains, although it does include flat-lying sandstones of the Permian Amelang Formation which are overlain by continental flood basalts of the Jurassic Kirwan Volcanics. The chemical and isotopic compositions of the basalt flows and sills resemble the Karoo Basalt of southern Africa which was adjacent to Queen Maud Land before the break-up of Gondwana (Adapted from Fumes et al. (1987))...

Schmidt and Rowley (1986) assumed that a continental rift formed between East and West Antarctica and subsequently widened into the Transantarctic Rift System by extension and thinning of the continental crust. At about the same time, continental flood basalts were erupted and dolerite sills were intruded into the flat-lying sedimentary Beacon rocks of the Transantarctic Mountains on the East Antarctic side of the rift. This tectono-magmatic activity was an immediate precursor to the break-up of Gondwana. 

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