Abstract
An improved Gondwanaland reconstruction compatible with geological and geophysical information from the surrounding oceans and continents seems to require microplates to solve the enigmatic pre-early-Mesozoic tectonic relation between West and East Antarctica1. New multi-channel seismic reflection data from the southeastern Weddell Sea acquired during the 1984–85 Norwegian Antarctic Research Expedition (NARE) have outlined a linear WSW–ENE-trending basement ridge buried below the continental slope over a distance of 700 km. This structural high truncates the trend of the large sedimentary basins below the Filchner and Ronne ice shelves and may continue to within a few hundred kilometres of the Antarctic Penninsula. We interpret the basement ridge as part of the East Antarctic plate boundary during the break-up of Gondwana. The morphology and structure of this boundary show greater apparent similarity to a rifted or obliquely rifted margin than to the sheared margin which is predicted by current reconstructions2,3. A linear East Antarctic plate margin extending to the vicinity of the Antarctic Peninsula makes any post-rift micro-plate motion in the Weddell Embayment unlikely.
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