A marked bend in the Hawaiian-Emperor seamount chain supposedly resulted from a recent major reorganization of the plate-mantle system there 50 million years ago. Although alternative mantledriven and plate-shifting hypotheses have been proposed, no contemporaneous circum-Pacific plate events have been identified. We report reconstructions for Australia and Antarctica that reveal a major plate reorganization between 50 and 53 million years ago. Revised Pacific Ocean sea-floor reconstructions suggest that subduction of the Pacific-Izanagi spreading ridge and subsequent Marianas/Tonga-Kermadec subduction initiation may have been the ultimate causes of these events. Thus, these plate reconstructions solve long-standing continental fit problems and improve constraints on the motion between East and West Antarctica and global plate circuit closure.

Item Type:	Refereed Article
Keywords:	Australia, Antarctica, Izanagi, subduction, plate reorganization
Research Division:	Earth Sciences
Research Group:	Geology
Research Field:	Marine geoscience
Objective Division:	Expanding Knowledge
Objective Group:	Expanding knowledge
Objective Field:	Expanding knowledge in the earth sciences
UTAS Author:	Whittaker, J (Associate Professor Jo Whittaker)
ID Code:	84443
Year Published:	2007
Web of Science® Times Cited:	211
Deposited By:	IMAS Research and Education Centre
Deposited On:	2013-05-14
Last Modified:	2016-12-21
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