Paleomagnetic Tests of Pacific Plate Reconstructions and Implications for Motion Between Hotspots

The plate-motion circuit through the South Pacific and Antarctica is shown to fail paleomagnetic tests of consistency. These failures imply that reconstructions of Pacific basin plates relative to surrounding plates inferred from this circuit are systematically in error and that estimates of motion...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Science
Main Authors: Acton, Gary D., Gordon, Richard G.
Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
Language:English
Published: American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) 1994
Subjects:
Antarc*
Antarctica
Online Access:http://dx.doi.org/10.1126/science.263.5151.1246
https://www.science.org/doi/pdf/10.1126/science.263.5151.1246
Description
Summary:The plate-motion circuit through the South Pacific and Antarctica is shown to fail paleomagnetic tests of consistency. These failures imply that reconstructions of Pacific basin plates relative to surrounding plates inferred from this circuit are systematically in error and that estimates of motion between hotspots inferred from this circuit are probably too large. Therefore, the motions between hotspots remain poorly known and may be much smaller than previously estimated.

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