Valdivia Bank is an oceanic plateau in the south Atlantic formed by hot spot volcanism at the mid-Atlantic Ridge (MAR) (Kumar, 1979;O'Connor & Duncan, 1990). It is part of Walvis Ridge, an aseismic volcanic chain that stretches from the Namibian margin of west Africa nearly to the MAR. Although commonly attributed to volcanism from a deep mantle plume (Courtillot et al., 2003;Hoernle et al., 2015), its morphology is more complex than plume trails such as the Hawaiian-Emperor and Louisville seamount chains (e.g., O'Connor & Jokat, 2015b;O'Connor & Le Roex, 1992;Sager et al., 2021). Off Africa, the Walvis Ridge is a linear ridge (Frio Ridge) trending SW-NE. It turns to N-S by nearly a right angle at Valdivia Bank, and upon resuming its SW-NE