Subduction Along the Paleo-Pacific Coast

During the early part of the Mesozoic Era a subduction zone in Fig. 15.3 stretched from the west coast of South America to the paleo-Pacific coast of East Antarctica. This subduction zone dipped under the Antarctic Peninsula, Thurston Island, Marie Byrd Land, Southern New Zealand, and Tasmania all of which were later moved into the positions they occupy at the present time (Elliot 1991). The subduction of oceanic crust caused the eruption of large amounts of 

The rocks that form the Antarctic Peninsula consist almost entirely of batholithic granitoids and volcanosedimentary complexes that formed as a result of the igneous activity associated with this subduction zone (Storey and Alabaster 1991). The rocks of the so-called Antarctic Peninsula Volcanic Group (APVG) were 

Additional information about the Mesozoic rocks of West Antarctica is available in the reports of  

Millar and Pankhurst (1987), Storey and Dalziel (1987), Gmnow etal. (1987), Dalziel et al. (1987a, b), Vennum and Storey (1987a, b), Garrett et al. (1987), 

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