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Oceanic Plateaus

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Encyclopedia of Marine Geosciences

Definition

Oceanic plateaus are large areas of elevated, over-thickened basaltic ocean floor (>5 × 105 km3) which have formed throughout most of Earth’s history, and, unlike most oceanic crust, they are not primarily the result of seafloor spreading processes and melting of ambient upper mantle but rather are widely regarded to have been formed by decompression melting of hot mantle plumes (Kerr, 2014).

Introduction

The vast erupted and intruded volume of oceanic plateaus means that they are classed as large igneous provinces (LIPs), along with continental flood basalts and volcanic rifted margins. The term large igneous provinces was originally proposed by Coffin and Eldholm (1992) as a generic term for igneous provinces with a volume exceeding 0.1 × 106 km2 (see also Coffin and Eldholm 2005). More recently, this definition has been revised by Bryan and Ernst (2008), who proposed a classification scheme that includes giant radiating dike swarms and silicic LIPs. Bryan and Ernst’s...

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Earth and Ocean Sciences, Cardiff University, Main Building, Park Place, Cardiff, Wales, CF10 3AT, UK

    Andrew C. Kerr

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  1. Andrew C. Kerr
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Correspondence to Andrew C. Kerr .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Marine and Coastal Sciences, University of Szczecin, Szczecin, Poland

    Jan Harff

  2. Institute of Geography and Geology, University of Greifswald, Greifswald, Germany

    Martin Meschede

  3. Leibiniz Institute of Marine Sciences, University of Kiel, Kiel, Germany

    Sven Petersen

  4. Academy of Sciences, Humanities, and Lit c/o Helmholtz-Center for Ocean Research, Kiel, Germany

    Jörn Thiede

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Kerr, A.C. (2015). Oceanic Plateaus. In: Harff, J., Meschede, M., Petersen, S., Thiede, J. (eds) Encyclopedia of Marine Geosciences. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-6644-0_21-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-6644-0_21-1

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