Archaean zircons in Miocene oceanic hotspot rocks establish ancient continental crust beneath Mauritius

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dc.citation.doi10.1038/ncomms14086en_ZA
dc.contributor.authorAshwal, L.D.
dc.contributor.authorWiedenbeck, M.
dc.contributor.authorTorsvik, T.H.
dc.date.accessioned2017-10-24T13:18:14Z
dc.date.available2017-10-24T13:18:14Z
dc.date.issued2017-01
dc.description.abstractA fragment of continental crust has been postulated to underlie the young plume-related lavas of the Indian Ocean island of Mauritius based on the recovery of Proterozoic zircons from basaltic beach sands. Here we document the first U-Pb zircon ages recovered directly from 5.7 Ma Mauritian trachytic rocks. We identified concordant Archaean xenocrystic zircons ranging in age between 2.5 and 3.0 Ga within a trachyte plug that crosscuts Older Series plume-related basalts of Mauritius. Our results demonstrate the existence of ancient continental crust beneath Mauritius; based on the entire spectrum of U-Pb ages for old Mauritian zircons, we demonstrate that this ancient crust is of central-east Madagascar affinity, which is presently located ∼700 km west of Mauritius. This makes possible a detailed reconstruction of Mauritius and other Mauritian continental fragments, which once formed part of the ancient nucleus of Madagascar and southern India.en_ZA
dc.description.librarianEM2017en_ZA
dc.identifier.citationAshwal, L.D., Wiedenbeck, M. and Torsvik, T.H. 2017. Archaean zircons in Miocene oceanic hotspot rocks establish ancient continental crust beneath Mauritius. Nature Communications 8, Article number 14086.en_ZA
dc.identifier.issn2041-1723 (Online)
dc.identifier.urihttp://hdl.handle.net/10539/23325
dc.journal.titleNature Communicationsen_ZA
dc.journal.volume8en_ZA
dc.language.isoenen_ZA
dc.publisherNature Publishing Groupen_ZA
dc.rights© 2017. The Authors. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.en_ZA
dc.subjectArcheanen_ZA
dc.subjectContinental crusten_ZA
dc.subjectMantle plumeen_ZA
dc.subjectMioceneen_ZA
dc.subjectReconstructionen_ZA
dc.subjectTrachyteen_ZA
dc.subjectUranium-lead datingen_ZA
dc.subjectVolcanic rocken_ZA
dc.subjectZirconen_ZA
dc.subjectBasalten_ZA
dc.subjectChilden_ZA
dc.subjectIndiaen_ZA
dc.subjectMadagascaren_ZA
dc.subjectMauritiusen_ZA
dc.subjectPlumeen_ZA
dc.subjectMascarene Islandsen_ZA
dc.titleArchaean zircons in Miocene oceanic hotspot rocks establish ancient continental crust beneath Mauritiusen_ZA
dc.typeArticleen_ZA
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