The West Antarctic rift system is the result of late Mesozoic and Cenozoic extension between East and West Antarctica, and represents one of the largest active continental rift systems on Earth. But the timing and magnitude of the plate motions leading to the development of this rift system remain poorly known, because of a lack of magnetic anomaly and fracture zone constraints on seafloor spreading. Here we report on magnetic data, gravity data and swath bathymetry collected in several areas of the south Tasman Sea and northern Ross Sea. These results enable us to calculate mid-Cenozoic rotation parameters for East and West Antarctica. These rotations show that there was roughly 180 km of separation in the western Ross Sea embayment in Eocene and Oligocene time. This episode of extension provides a tectonic setting for several significant Cenozoic tectonic events in the Ross Sea embayment including the uplift of the Transantarctic Mountains and the deposition of large thicknesses of Oligocene sediments. Inclusion of this East-West Antarctic motion in the plate circuit linking the Australia, Antarctic and Pacific plates removes a puzzling gap between the Lord Howe rise and Campbell plateau found in previous early Tertiary reconstructions of the New Zealand region. Determination of this East-West Antarctic motion also resolves a long standing controversy regarding the contribution of deformation in this region to the global plate circuit linking the Pacific to the rest of the world.

SUMMARY We present a tectonic interpretation of the breakup and early seafloor spreading between India and Antarctica based on improved coverage of potential field and seismic data off the east Antarctic margin between the Gunnerus Ridge and the Bruce Rise. We have identified a series of ENE trending Mesozoic magnetic anomalies from chron M9o (∼130.2 Ma) to M2o (∼124.1 Ma) in the Enderby Basin, and M9o to M4o (∼126.7 Ma) in the Princess Elizabeth Trough and Davis Sea Basin, indicating that India–Antarctica and India–Australia breakups were roughly contemporaneous. We present evidence for an abandoned spreading centre south of the Elan Bank microcontinent; the estimated timing of its extinction corresponds to the early surface expression of the Kerguelen Plume at the Southern Kerguelen Plateau around 120 Ma. We observe an increase in spreading rate from west to east, between chron M9 and M4 (38–54 mm yr–1), along the Antarctic margin and suggest the tectono‐magmatic segmentation of oceanic crust has been influenced by inherited crustal structure, the kinematics of Gondwanaland breakup and the proximity to the Kerguelen hotspot. A high‐amplitude, E–W oriented magnetic lineation named the Mac Robertson Coast Anomaly (MCA), coinciding with a landwards step‐down in basement observed in seismic reflection data, is tentatively interpreted as the boundary between continental/transitional zone and oceanic crust. The exposure of lower crustal rocks along the coast suggests that this margin formed in a metamorphic core complex extension mode with a high strength ratio between upper and lower crust, which typically occurs above anomalously hot mantle. Together with the existence of the MCA zone this observation suggests that a mantle temperature anomaly predated the early surface outpouring/steady state magmatic production of the Kerguelen LIP. An alternative model suggests that the northward ridge jump was limited to the Elan Bank region, whereas seafloor spreading continued in the West Enderby Basin and its Sri Lankan conjugate margin. In this case, the MCA magnetic anomaly could be interpreted as the southern arm of a ridge propagator that stopped around 120 Ma.

Abstract. Recently discovered megamullions on the seafloor have been interpreted to be the exhumed footwalls of long-lived detachment faults operating near the ends of spreading segments in slow spreading crust. We conducted five submersible dives on one of these features just east of the rift valley in the Mid-Atlantic Ridge at 26ø35'N and obtained visual, rock sample, gravity, and heat flow data along a transect from the breakaway zone (where the fault is interpreted to have first nucleated in -2.0-2.2 Ma crust) westward to near the termination (-0.7 Ma). Our observations are consistent with the detachment fault hypothesis and show the following features. In the breakaway zone, faulted and steeply backtilted basaltic blocks suggest rotation above a deeper shear zone; the youngest normal faults in this sequence are interpreted to have evolved into the longlived detachment fault. In younger crust the interpreted detachment surface rises as monotonously flat seafloor in a pair of broad, gently sloping domes that formed simultaneously along isochrons and are now thinly covered by sediment. The detachment surface is locally littered with basaltic debris that may have been clipped from the hanging wall. The domes coincide with a gravity high that continues along isochrons within the spreading segment. Modeling of on-bottom gravity measurements and recovery of serpentinites imply that mantle rises steeply and is exposed within -7 km west of the breakaway but that rocks with intermediate densities prevail farther west. Within -5 km of the termination, small volcanic cones appear on the detachment surface, indicating melt input into the footwall. We interpret the megamullion to have developed during a phase of limited magmatism in the spreading segment, with mantle being exhumed by the detachment fault <0.5 m.y. after its initiation. Increasing magmatism may eventually have weakened the lithosphere and facilitated propagation of a rift that terminated slip on the detachment fault progressively between -1.3 m.y. and 0.7 m.y. Identifiable but lowamplitude magnetic anomalies over the megamullion indicate that it incorporates a magmatic component. We infer that much of the footwall is composed of variably serpentinized peridotite intruded by plutons and dikes. IntroductionMid-ocean ridges that have limited magma supply are strongly affected by normal faulting that creates rough abyssal hill topography. The largest fault scarps occur toward the ends of spreading segments [Shaw, 1992] Megamullions have two prominent characteristics: (1) a gently domed, overall turtleback shape (i.e., megamullion) and (2) a surface that is interpreted to be a single and extensive fault plane that is distinguished by the presence of prominent corrugations (mullion structures) that parallel the fault slip direction (e.g., Figures 1 and 2). In the direction of fault slip the updip limit of a megamullion is a breakaway zone where the fault initially nucleated. The downdip limit, or termination, normally is marked by contact with a hanging wall. ...

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