Ontong Java Plateau
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The Ontong Java Plateau is a huge undersea plateau located in the Pacific Ocean, lying north of the Solomon Islands. The plateau covers an area of approximately 2,000,000 km², or roughly the size of Alaska, and reaches a thickness of up to 30 km. The plateau is of volcanic origin, composed mostly of flood basalts, and is the world's largest large igneous province. Although they are now widely separated, Manikihi Plateau and Hikurangi Plateau may have been part of the same province, which would have extruded some 100 million km3 of magma.[1] These plateaus were formed under the Pacific, and mostly still lie under the sea, although the collision of the Solomon Islands with the Ontong Java Plateau has lifted some of this plateau above sea level on the islands of Santa Isabel, Makira, and Malaita. Ontong Java Atoll is located in northern Malaita Province. Some of the rocks that make up the plateau have been dated to 120 million years ago (mya), and others to 90 mya.
[edit] Notes
- ^ "the Manihiki and Hikurangi Plateaus [...] we interpret as remnants of a formerly contiguous Ontong Java–Manihiki–Hikurangi large igneous province". Tim J. Worthington; Roger Hekinian, Peter Stoffers, Thomas Kuhn and Folkmar Hauff (30 May 2006). "Osbourn Trough: Structure, geochemistry and implications of a mid-Cretaceous paleospreading ridge in the South Pacific". Earth and Planetary Science Letters 245 (3-4): 685-701. DOI:10.1016/j.epsl.2006.03.018. Retrieved on 2007-03-14.
