Plate tectonics synthesis: The displacements between Australia, New Zealand, and Antarctica since the Late Cretaceous

Abstract

A comprehensive study of the last 75 m.y. of plate tectonics history has been undertaken for the region south of 30°S in the South Pacific, Southeast Indian Ocean and the Tasman Sea. Some aspects of plate boundary evolution have been clarified by our compilation and examination of available marine geophysical data. Reidentification of magnetic lineations in the southern Tasman basin shows that the controversial interval of subduction of Tasman basin crust along the east Australian margin that was previously proposed is no longer necessary. A comparison of Cenozoic magnetic lineations from both sides of the easternmost spreading segment of southeast Indian ridge indicates that a portion of the Indian plate younger than anomaly 10 (32 m.y.B.P.) is missing. We suggest that the missing crust was either subducted beneath or captured by the Pacific plate. Older lineations on the Indian plate out to about anomaly 21 have greater along-strike lengths than their counterparts on the Antarctic plate. The difference is due to an interval of crustal accretion at the Indian—Pacific plate boundary in the Early to Middle Tertiary. In the South Pacific, the Antarctic plate may not have extended northeast of the Eltanin fracture zone system prior to anomaly 29 (69 m.y.B.P.). Subduction of oceanic lithosphere was probably occurring beneath the Antarctic peninsula and eastern Ellsworth Land parts of the Antarctic plate at that time. Between anomaly-29 time and a major reorganization of plate boundaries in the Late Oligocene, plate interactions occurred in the central South Pacific between the Pacific, Farallon, Antarctic, Aluk and possibly a fifth plate. Spreading rate calculations for the Early Oligocene indicate that a simple three-plate system involving the Pacific, Farallon and Antarctic plates is difficult to maintain unless highly asymmetric spreading occurred at the Farallon—Antarctic boundary in the Early Oligocene. Further to the southeast in the Bellingshausen basin, spreading occurred along segments of the Antarctic—Aluk plate boundary beginning at about anomaly-29 time. Collisions of segments of this boundary with the trench along the Antarctic peninsula occurred in the Early and Middle Tertiary and resulted in the total disappearance of portions of Aluk plate. The collisions brought Antarctic—Aluk ridge segments into contact with Antarctic—Aluk trench segments with resulting stabilization of the Antarctic continental margin. From the magnetic lineations mapped in the southern oceans, we calculated new finite rotations which determine the relative positions of the Australian, New Zealand, and Antarctic continental fragments at 5–10 m.y. intervals during the last 75 m.y. For the New Zealand region, finite rotations calculated from magnetic lineations in the Tasman Sea and southwestern Pacific indicate that three plates were active during the Late Cretaceous to Paleocene. Previous workers have proposed that one of the three plate boundaries occurred southward between East and West Antarctica approximately along the trend of the Transantarctic mountains. As no direct geologic or geophysical evidence in Antarctica supports this proposal and since sea-floor spreading magnetic evidence shows that an active plate boundary passed through the New Zealand region after the Paleocene, we prefer to carry the required plate boundary northward. The Indian—Pacific poles of relative motion were always close to this boundary during the Cenozoic and thus corresponding evidence for plate interactions in New Zealand continental geology is generally variable and sometimes subtle.