PROFILPELAJAR.COM

The Skagerrak-Centered Large Igneous Province (SCLIP), also known as the European-Northwest African Large Igneous Province (EUNWA),^[1] and Jutland LIP, is a 300 million year old (Ma) large igneous province (LIP) centered on what is today the Skagerrak strait in north-western Europe (57°50′N 9°04′E / 57.833°N 9.067°E / 57.833; 9.067, paleocoordinates^[2] 11°N 16°E / 11°N 16°E / 11; 16 (south of Lake Chad)). It was named by Torsvik et al. 2008.

The SCLIP covered an area of at least 0.5×10^⁶ km² (0.19×10^⁶ sq mi) and includes the Oslo and Skagerrak grabens, areas in south-western Sweden, Scotland, northern England, and the central North Sea. The SCLIP erupted at 297±4 Ma.^[3] It produced 228,000 km² of currently exposed volcanic material that can be found in Skagerrak, the Oslo Fjord, central North Sea, North-east Germany; 14,000 km² of sills in Scotland, England, Germany, The Netherlands, and Sweden; and 3,353 km total length of dykes in Scotland, Norway, and Sweden.^[4] The period of eruptions comprised a relatively short time span, perhaps less than 4 Ma, but magma propagated more than 1,000 km (620 mi) from the plume centre.^[5]

Plumes derived from a superplume (or Large Low Shear Velocity Province (LLSVP)) overlay the boundary of the superplume at the core-mantle boundary (CMB).^[6] To test whether the SCLIP met these criteria, Torsvik et al. used a shear-wave tomographic model of the mantle, in which the SCLIP indeed do project down to the margin of the African superplume at the CMB at a depth of 2800 km.^[2] A series of LIPs are associated with the African superplume, of which the SCLIP is the oldest: SCLIP (300 Ma), Bachu (275 Ma), Emeishan (260 Ma), Siberian (250 Ma), and Central Atlantic (200 Ma). Its possible that these plumes together caused the break-up of Pangaea and therefore play an important role in the supercontinent cycle.^[7]

The SCLIP is associated with the Moscovian and Kasimovian stages of the Carboniferous rainforest collapse around 296-310 Ma together with the Siberian Barguzin-Vitim LIP. ^[8]

References

^ E.g. Doblas et al. 1998, Abstract; Bryan & Ferrari 2013, Fig. 1, p. 1054
^ ^a ^b Torsvik et al. 2008, Relationship of the Skagerrak LIP eruption site to the deep mantle, pp. 447–448
^ Torsvik et al. 2008, The Skagerrak-Centered Large Igneous Province, pp. 444–445
^ Torsvik et al. 2008, Fig. 1, p. 445
^ Torsvik et al. 2008, Conclusions, p. 451
^ Torsvik et al. 2008, Was the SCLIP generated by a mantle plume?, pp. 445-446
^ Li & Zhong 2009, Superplume record during the Pangean cycle, pp. 146–147
^ Kravchinsky 2012, Table 1, p. 33