Provenance of Proterozoic garnet-biotite gneiss recovered from
Elan Bank, Kerguelen Plateau, southern Indian Ocean
Geology, 29, 3, 235-238, March 2001.
ABSTRACT
At Elan Bank of the Kerguelen Plateau in the southeast Indian
Ocean, Leg 183 of the Ocean Drilling Program recovered clasts
of garnet-biotite gneiss in a fluvial conglomerate intercalated
with basalt flows. U-Pb and Pb-Pb dates of zircons and monazites
in these clasts and an overlying sandstone range from 534 to 2547
Ma, which is much older than the surrounding Indian Ocean seafloor.
These dates show that old continental crust resides in the shallow
crust of the oceanic Kerguelen Plateau and that the breakup of
Gondwana dispersed continental fragments into the nascent Indian
Ocean lithosphere.
Keywords: Kerguelen Plateau, geochronology, continental crust, Proterozoic, Indian Ocean.