Dipping basement reflectors along volcanic passive margins—new insight using data from the Kerguelen Plateau

Abstract

Multichannel seismic reflection data from the Southern Kerguelen Plateau show many dipping basement reflectors associated with volcanic flows. These reflectors are quite similar in their shape to seaward‐dipping basement reflectors observed along volcanic passive margins. On the Kerguelen Plateau the sources are updip of the basement reflectors, in the presently extinct and eroded volcanoes. We suggest that the same source/reflector geometry may also apply to the seaward‐dipping basement reflectors observed along passive margins. We interpret these reflectors to be the result of volcanism on the passive margin which flowed in all directions into the newly created ocean basin at an early spreading stage.