The Skagerrak-Centered Large Igneous Province (SCLIP), also known as the European-Northwest African Large Igneous Province (EUNWA), and Jutland LIP, is a (Ma)

large igneous province A large igneous province (LIP) is an extremely large accumulation of igneous rocks, including intrusive ( sills, dikes) and extrusive (lava flows, tephra deposits), arising when magma travels through the crust towards the surface. The format ...

(LIP) centered on what is today the

Skagerrak The Skagerrak (; , , ) is a strait running between the North Jutlandic Island of Denmark, the east coast of Norway and the west coast of Sweden, connecting the North Sea and the Kattegat sea. The Skagerrak contains some of the busiest shipping ...

strait in north-western Europe (, paleocoordinates (south of

Lake Chad Lake Chad (, Kanuri language, Kanuri: ''Sádǝ'', ) is an endorheic freshwater lake located at the junction of four countries: Nigeria, Niger, Chad, and Cameroon, in western and central Africa respectively, with a catchment area in excess of . ...

)). It was named by . The SCLIP covered an area of at least and includes the Oslo and Skagerrak

graben In geology, a graben () is a depression (geology), depressed block of the Crust (geology), crust of a planet or moon, bordered by parallel normal faults. Etymology ''Graben'' is a loan word from German language, German, meaning 'ditch' or 't ...

s, areas in south-western Sweden, Scotland, northern England, and the central North Sea. The SCLIP erupted at 297±4 Ma. 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. The period of eruptions comprised a relatively short time span, perhaps less than 4 Ma, but magma propagated more than from the plume centre. Plumes derived from a

superplume Large low-shear-velocity provinces (LLSVPs), also called large low-velocity provinces (LLVPs) or superplumes, are characteristic structures of parts of the lowermost mantle, the region surrounding the outer core deep inside the Earth. These provi ...

(or Large Low Shear Velocity Province (LLSVP)) overlay the boundary of the superplume at the core-mantle boundary (CMB). 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. 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 Siberia ( ; , ) is an extensive geographical region comprising all of North Asia, from the Ural Mountains in the west to the Pacific Ocean in the east. It has formed a part of the sovereign territory of Russia and its predecessor states si ...

(250 Ma), and

Central Atlantic Central is an adjective usually referring to being in the center of some place or (mathematical) object. Central may also refer to: Directions and generalised locations * Central Africa, a region in the centre of Africa continent, also known as ...

(200 Ma). Its possible that these plumes together caused the break-up of

Pangaea Pangaea or Pangea ( ) was a supercontinent that existed during the late Paleozoic and early Mesozoic eras. It assembled from the earlier continental units of Gondwana, Euramerica and Siberia during the Carboniferous period approximately 335 mi ...

and therefore play an important role in the

supercontinent cycle The supercontinent cycle is the quasi-periodic aggregation and dispersal of Earth's continental crust. There are varying opinions as to whether the amount of continental crust is increasing, decreasing, or staying about the same, but it is agree ...

. The SCLIP is associated with the Moscovian and

Kasimovian The Kasimovian is a geochronologic age or chronostratigraphic stage in the ICS geologic timescale. It is the third stage in the Pennsylvanian (late Carboniferous), lasting from to Ma.; 2004: ''A Geologic Time Scale 2004'', Cambridge Unive ...

stages of the

Carboniferous rainforest collapse The Carboniferous rainforest collapse (CRC) was a minor extinction event that occurred around 305 million years ago in the Carboniferous period. The event occurred at the end of the Moscovian and continued into the early Kasimovian stages of th ...

around 296-310 Ma together with the Siberian Barguzin-Vitim LIP.

References

Bibliography

* * * * * {{Large igneous provinces Large igneous provinces Carboniferous volcanism Permian volcanism Geology of Denmark Geology of England Geology of the Netherlands Geology of Norway Geology of Scotland Geology of Sweden Geology of the North Sea Paleozoic Denmark Paleozoic England Paleozoic Netherlands Paleozoic Norway Paleozoic Scotland Paleozoic Sweden Gzhelian Asselian

See also

References

Bibliography