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Timing of the Ethiopian flood basalt event and implications for plume birth and global change

Nature volume 389, pages 838–841 (1997)Cite this article

Abstract

Continental flood basalts are often considered as fossil evidence of mantle plume heads impinging on the lithosphere1,2 and have been related to continental breakup3,4,5. Many of these flood basalts erupted within a short time span—of the order of 1 Myr—and were apparently synchronous with crises in global climate and with mass extinctions6. Here we present geochronological (40Ar/39Ar) and magnetostratigraphic results for the Ethiopian traps, one of the last remaining flood basalts for which few such data were available. The bulk of the traps, which have been inferred to mark the appearance of the Ethiopian-Afar plume head at the Earth's surface, erupted approximately 30 Myr ago, over a period of 1 Myr or less. This was about the time of a change to a colder and drier global climate, a major continental ice-sheet advance in Antarctica, the largest Tertiary sea-level drop and significant extinctions.

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Figure 1: Location map of the northern Ethiopia and Yemen (Oligocene) volcanic province and East African triple junction (after ref. 9, 38).
Figure 2: Histograms of Ethiopian volcanic ages.
Figure 3: Details of the Lima-Limo (LL) section.
Figure 4: A selection of 11 40Ar/39Ar age spectra.

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Acknowledgements

This work was part of the French (INSU-MAE)–Ethiopian Cooperative Reseach Program on the Geodynamics of the Ethiopian Plateau and Afar Depression. We thank C. Coulon, C.Deniel and A. Dereje for help with fieldwork and sampling, providing maps, and discussions; J. J. Jaeger, P. Molnar, P. Y. Gillot, X. Quidelleur, P. Layer, R. Duncan and N. Rogers for comments and suggestions.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institut de Physique du Globe, 4 Place Jussieu, 75252, Parix, Cedex 05, France

    C. Hofmann & V. Courtillot

  2. UMR Géosciences Azur (Université de Nice, CNRS), Parc Valrose, 06108, Nice, Cedex 2, France

    C. Hofmann & G. Féraud

  3. CEREGE, Univesité d'Aix-Marseille 3, BP 81, 13545, Aix en Provence, Cedex 4, France

    P. Rochette & R. Pik

  4. Department of Geology and Geophysics, University of Addis Ababa, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia

    G. Yirgu & E. Ketefo

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  1. C. Hofmann
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Correspondence to V. Courtillot.

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Hofmann, C., Courtillot, V., Féraud, G. et al. Timing of the Ethiopian flood basalt event and implications for plume birth and global change. Nature 389, 838–841 (1997). https://doi.org/10.1038/39853

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