Large Igneous Provinces

Large igneous provinces (LIPs)—oceanic plateaus, volcanic rifted margins, and continental flood basalts—result from fundamental processes in Earth’s interior and have been implicated as a cause of major worldwide environmental changes. Although the plate tectonics paradigm successfully explains volcanic activity on Earth’s surface associated with seafloor spreading and plate subduction, it does not elucidate the massive “hotspot” volcanism that produces LIPs, which dominates the record of volcanism on all other terrestrial planets and satellites in our solar system and the cause of which is debated vigorously. Temporal correlations between LIP emplacements and environmental phenomena such as mass extinctions and oceanic anoxic events (OAEs) are well documented, yet the underlying mechanisms causing these global catastrophes are only beginning to be grasped. Scientific ocean drilling has played a central and critical role in illuminating solid Earth processes causing LIPs and in comprehending the effects of LIP formation on Earth’s environment.