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Jakarta –
Deep beneath the Pacific Ocean, a massive geological superstructure has emerged since the Cretaceous period. The formation of this superstructure was triggered by an area of intraplate volcanism wider than England.
In a new study, geologists tried to piece together information about the formation of the Melanesian border plateau. They concluded that the plains were formed by several different waves of volcanism, starting from the time when dinosaurs roamed the Earth and continuing to the present day.
The seabed is dotted with countless seamounts and ridges as well as larger volcanic structures. Underwater formations like these are often thought to have been created by sudden volcanic disturbances. This event can become a major catastrophe and trigger major environmental changes.
However, this latest research shows that the Melanesian border plateau has a more complicated background. Located in the southwestern Pacific Ocean, this superstructure appears to have formed over millions of years through a slow burning process that occurred in four distinct phases.
“There are multiple features in the Pacific basin, and scientists only have one sample, this looks like a very large single event,” said Kevin Konrad, study leader and assistant professor at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, quoted from Live Science.
“When we study these features in detail, we sometimes find that they actually formed in multiple phases over several million years and would not have had any significant impact on the environment,” Konrad continued.
To reach their findings, the team conducted geochemical analyzes on samples collected from the Melanesian Border Plateau region, the Western Samoa Seamounts, the Eastern Samoa Seamount Province and the Tuvalu Seamount Chain region.
This suggests that the formation of the superstructure began in the Cretaceous period, around 120 million years ago, with huge eruptions of lava that formed a series of seamounts.
In the second phase, between 56 and 33.9 million years ago, the lithosphere, Earth’s rocky outer shell, passed through a volcanic region called the Arago hotspot, creating more seamounts and several oceanic islands. These islands eventually erode and sink below the surface.
Third, move forward to a more recent era, the Miocene epoch, 23 to 5 million years ago. The same islands and seamounts were reactivated and new volcanoes formed as Earth’s lithosphere passed over another hotspot, the Samoan hotspot. This volcanic hotspot continues to create new islands today.
Finally, in the period that continues today, new volcanic eruptions occurred on the plateau because the lithosphere had changed due to the retreat of the Pacific Plate beneath the Tonga Trench.
This is complex information that researchers believe will provide a more nuanced picture of how some underwater features form. To describe the geological products of this multistage event, the team proposed the term “mid-ocean plate superstructure.”
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(rns/fyk)
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