Tertiary±Recent magmatism in the Kenya Rift Valley was initiated c. 35Ma, in the northern part of Kenya. Initiation of magmatism then migrated southwards, reaching northern Tanzania by 5±8Ma. This progressionwas accompaniedby a change in the nature of the lithosphere, from rocks of the Panafrican Mozambique mobile belt through reworked craton margin to rigid, Archaean craton. Magma volumes and ...

Mid-ocean ridge magmatism is driven by seafloor spreading and decompression melting of the upper mantle. Melt production is apparently modulated by glacial-interglacial changes in sea level, raising the possibility that magmatic flux acts as a negative feedback on ice-sheet size. The timing of melt variability is poorly constrained, however, precluding a clear link between ridge magmatism and P...

Tectonic collision between South America and Panama began at 23–25 Ma. The collision is signifi cant because it ultimately led to development of the Panamanian Isthmus, which in turn had wide-ranging oceanic, climatic, biologic, and tectonic implications. Within the Panama Canal Zone, volcanic activity transitioned from hydrous mantle-wedge−derived arc magmatism to localized extensional arc mag...

The Neoproterozoic shoshonitic and mildly alkaline bimodal volcanism of Southernmost Brazil is represented by rock assemblages associated to sedimentary successions, deposited in strike-slip basins formed at the post-collisional stages of the Brasilian/Pan-African orogenic cycle. The best-preserved volcano sedimentary associations occur in the Camaquã and Campo Alegre Basins, respectively in th...

The temporal-spatial coincidence of saline deposits with rifting and alkaline magmatism has now become a commonly accepted fact. The congruency of these three phenomena implies logically, their trilateral genetic interrelation. The conventional concept for the formation of saline deposits, i.e an "evaporation process" can not be properly applied to giant saline deposits. The proposed "Volc...

*Correspondence: Paterno R. Castillo, Geosciences Research Division, Scripps Institution of Oceanography, University of California, San Diego, 8615 Kennel Way, La Jolla, CA 92037, USA e-mail: [email protected] †Present address: Sæmundur A. Halldórsson, Nordic Volcanological Center, Institute of Earth Sciences, University of Iceland, Reykjavik, Iceland The recently-discovered high, plume-like 3...

For the past 40 years, the Moon has been described as nearly devoid of indigenous water; however, evidence for water both on the lunar surface and within the lunar interior have recently emerged, calling into question this long-standing lunar dogma. In the present study, hydroxyl (as well as fluoride and chloride) was analyzed by secondary ion mass spectrometry in apatite [Ca(5)(PO(4))(3)(F,Cl,...

The hypothesis that thermal plumes contribute to the Cenozoic magmatism in East Africa is now widely accepted. The controversy lies on how many plumes exist and where they may be located. In this study we show numerical experiments of mantle convection models for a number of thermal plume models and discuss the implications for the melt generation in East Africa. We investigate how the plume(s)...