Geodynamic reconstructions of the South America–Antarctica plate system

The global relevance of the Scotia Arc: An introduction

“…The arc encloses the Scotia Sea which is composed of amalgamated oceanic crust terrains that developed during relative motion of the bounding South American and Antarctic plates (BAS, 1985;Cunningham et al, A C C E P T E D M A N U S C R I P T (Leat et al, 2010(Leat et al, , 2013Nicholson and Georgen, 2013). Kinematic reconstructions of South AmericaAntarctica motions during the Cenozoic are based on the analysis of seafloor magnetic anomalies in the Scotia Sea and surrounding oceanic areas, and on the relative motions of South America, Africa and the Antarctic Peninsula (Vérard et al, 2012;Dalziel et al, 2013a,b;Eagles and Jokat, 2014). These studies depict a progressive opening of the Scotia Sea through continental stretching and oceanic spreading.…”

Tectonic reconstructions for paleobathymetry in Drake Passage

“…By this process, from a series of studies through the 1970s and 1980s (reviewed by Barker et al, 1991 andBarker, 2001), a regional plate kinematic synthesis was built to depict the assumption, going back to the 19th century, of a compact cuspate arrangement of continental blocks at Gondwana's Pacific margin. This synthesis is now the basis, in part or whole, for numerous regional tectonic compilations and data products (Brown et al, 2006;Lagabrielle et al, 2009;Müller et al, 2008;Vérard et al, 2012).…”

“…Hill and Barker (1980) modelled the anomalies to interpret the isochrons as 5C to 5 (Miocene), after noting that their reconstruction of the west Scotia Sea required extra east-west extension to fit their southern identifications of anomaly 8. Although this anomaly interpretation has since been reproduced and used widely (Galindo-Zaldívar et al, 2006;Maldonado et al, 2003;Vérard et al, 2012), it is neither a requirement of the short magnetic profiles nor of the better-constrained modern understanding of anomaly 8's distribution in the west Scotia Sea. Eagles et al (2006) show that the isostatically-corrected basement depth suggests a basin age near that of the Eocene-Oligocene boundary.…”

“…Brown et al, 2006;Müller et al, 2008). Lawver et al (1992), Vérard et al (2012) and Nerlich et al (2013) place the opening of a Miocene central Scotia Sea in plate kinematic context, although only Nerlich et al (2013) report their rotations. Livermore et al (1994), Eagles et al (2005Eagles et al ( , 2006 and Eagles (2010b) highlight a number of contradictory observations to this scenario.…”

Geodynamic Reconstructions of the Australides—2: Mesozoic–Cainozoic

“…The East ANT GDUs (namely the Antarctic-Peninsula Meanwhile, an intra-oceanic island arc originating from the Triangular Zone of the Pacific (i.e., the magnetic anomalies forming a triangle east of the Mariana Islands and north of Micronesia; see [34]) migrates towards the south (see also [66]). The island arc (thus, considered as having no continental basement) consists of the "North-East New Zealand GDUs" (Figure 2e) (Figure 2e) in the Pacific between the tails of the "North-East New Zealand" island arc which moves south and the Sepik arc which moves north.…”