Wrangellia Terrane on Vancouver Island, British Columbia: Distribution of Flood Basalts with Implications for Potential Ni-Cu-PGE Mineralization in Southwestern British Columbia

Wrangellia consists largely of an oceanic plateau, a vast outpouring of basalt and more Mg-rich magma that erupted onto the ocean floor and was subsequently accreted to the western margin of the North American plate. Flood basalts form extensive sequences on Vancouver Island and are believed to have formed by melting in a mantle plume (an upwelling zone of hot mantle rock). They form the oceanic variety of a Large Igneous Province (LIP). A peculiarity of the Wrangellia plateau is that it erupted into an extinct island arc.