The Scotia Arc: Genesis, Evolution, Global Significance: Further

EA41CH28-Dalziel ARI 19 April 2013 14:58
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Institute for Geophysics, Jackson School of Geosciences, The University of Texas at Austin,
Austin, Texas 78758-4445; email: ian@ig.utexas.edu, lawver@ig.utexas.edu,
norton@ig.utexas.edu, plates@ig.utexas.edu
Annu. Rev. Earth Planet. Sci. 2013. 41:767–93 Keywords

First published online as a Review in Advance on Gondwana, Scotia Sea, South Atlantic, Weddell Sea
March 28, 2013
The Annual Review of Earth and Planetary Sciences is Abstract

online at earth.annualreviews.org
The Scotia arc is the eastward-closing loop of mountains and locally emer-
This article’s doi: gent submarine ridges extending from the southernmost Andes through the
10.1146/annurev-earth-050212-124155
active South Sandwich volcanic arc to the Antarctic Peninsula. Its origins
Copyright c 2013 by Annual Reviews. lie in the Jurassic initial fragmentation of Gondwana. This fragmentation
All rights reserved
involved extreme intercratonic extension, Pacificward translation of rotat-
ing crustal blocks, and an ignimbrite flare-up. Relative motion between
South America, Africa, and East Antarctica during the opening of the south-
ern ocean basins resulted in mid-Cretaceous uplift of the Pacific margin
cordillera and translation of elevated crustal blocks eastward to form the
North and South Scotia Ridges. The South Sandwich volcanic arc system
originated in Neogene westward-directed subduction beneath oceanic crust
formed between South America and Antarctica and serves as an excellent
tectonic laboratory. The physiography of the entire Scotia arc region has
profoundly influenced the onset and development of the Antarctic Circum-
polar Current and migration of marine and terrestrial biota.
767
THE SCOTIA ARC IN SPACE AND TIME

The Scotia arc is the striking eastward-closing positive physiographic feature enclosing the
Scotia Sea and joining the southernmost Andean Cordillera of South America to the Antarc-
tic Peninsula—the “Antarctandes” of Barrow (1831). It is comparable to the Caribbean arc,
which joins the northernmost Andes to North America (Figure 1). Both arcuate systems have
active volcanic arcs at their eastern extremities: the South Sandwich Islands on the Scotia Ridge
and the Lesser Antilles in the Caribbean. During their Mesozoic and Cenozoic development,
both played major roles in the development of Earth’s climate and in the distribution of plant
and animal life, and they are both potential gateways for asthenospheric flow from the closing
Pacific Ocean basin to the opening Atlantic Ocean basin. The Scotia arc takes its name from the
steam yacht Scotia of the Scottish National Antarctic Expedition (1902 to 1904) led by Dr. W.S.
Bruce. Members of that expedition undertook the first bathymetric study of the region, mapping
the submarine Scotia Ridge between the South American and Antarctic continents (Rudmose
Brown et al. 1906). The tectonic evolution of this region is critical to understanding the onset
and development of the Antarctic Circumpolar Current, the planet’s largest ocean current by
North e
America dg
Ri
30°N
tic
lan
Mid-At
Africa
LA
CS
A
0°
South
America Atlantic
Ocean
30°S
M id - Atl
an
ti
F/M
cR
id
IR
ge
SW
Scotia
SSA
Sea AAR
60°S
Weddell Sea
Antarctic
Peninsula
East Antarctica
80°W 40°W 0°
Figure 1
Global setting of the Scotia Sea and its enclosing Scotia arc. Abbreviations: AAR, American-Antarctic Ridge;
CS, Caribbean Sea; F/M, Falkland/Malvinas Islands; LAA, Lesser Antilles volcanic arc; SSA, South
Sandwich volcanic arc; SWIR, Southwest Indian Ridge.
768 Dalziel et al.

South
America
50°S
Falkland/Malvinas
Islands Falkland Plateau
NGR
North Scotia Ridge
AB
DvB SRB ? ?
BwB SG
?
ea
tia S ?
t Sco
Wes Central
Scotia
Sea
SAF ACC East
Scotia SSI
SFZ Sea
PB
TR
Drake Passage BB
60°S PF HB
DB
South Scotia Ridge
SOI JB
SACCF
Antarctic Weddell Sea

SB Peninsula
70°W 60°W 50°W 40°W 30°W 20°W
Figure 2
Physiography of the Scotia arc region with path of the Antarctic Circumpolar Current. Physical features: AB, Aurora Bank∗ ; BwB,
Burdwood Bank; BB, Bruce Bank∗ ; DB, Discovery Bank∗ ; DvB, Davis Bank∗ ; HB, Herdman Bank∗ ; JB, Jane Bank∗ ; NGR, Northeast
Georgia Rise; PB, Pirie Bank∗ ; SFZ, Shackleton Fracture Zone; SRB, Shag Rocks Bank∗ ; SSI, South Sandwich Islands; SG, South
Georgia microcontinent; SOI, South Orkney Islands microcontinent; TR, Terror Rise∗ . Asterisks indicate informal names; the name
Barker Bank has now been formally proposed to replace the informal Aurora Bank. Red lines denote plate boundaries, with transform
segments indicated by red arrows; double red lines denote active spreading centers; teeth indicate the upper plate of the active
subduction zone. Ocean currents and fronts (from Naveira Garabato et al. 2002): ACC, Antarctic Circumpolar Current; PF, Polar
Front; SACCF, Southern Antarctic Circumpolar Current Front; SAF, Subantarctic Front; SB, southern boundary of the ACC. The
Polar Front is the core of the flow of Circumpolar Deep Water of the ACC. White arrows show the three main pathways of the ACC.
The orange star shows the location of two dredge hauls from the forearc of the active South Shetland Islands volcanic arc.
volume and among its most climatically significant. The present path of the current is strongly
influenced by bathymetry (Gordon et al. 1978), as it is diverted by the South Sandwich arc (SSA)
through depressions in the North Scotia Ridge (Naveira Garabato et al. 2002, Smith et al. 2010)
(Figure 2).
The Scotia arc originated during the late Mesozoic at a singular location along the Panthalassic
margin of the Gondwana supercontinent, between two distinct Precambrian cratons, the Kalahari
craton of Africa and the East Antarctic craton. However, as discussed below, its development
was also influenced by the proximity of a third craton, the Rio de la Plata craton of South
America (Figure 3). The origin of the arc lies in the initial fragmentation of Gondwana prior
to seafloor spreading in what became the southwest Indian Ocean basin. In this review, we
consider the entire Scotia arc region from the amalgamation of the Gondwana supercontinent
near the Precambrian-Cambrian transition to its present-day active tectonic development.
In so doing, we discuss the wider implications of the region for Earth system history and
processes.
www.annualreviews.org • The Scotia Arc 769

30°
60°
M India 182 Mya
0°
Toarcian
Africa Early Jurassic
East 90°
Antarctica
South K
–30° America 1 Australia
RP 4P
2 3
SV 5 8
6 7
Pt
9
–30° –30°
–60° –60°
Figure 3
Reconstruction of the Gondwana supercontinent in a paleomagnetic reference frame (Van der Voo 1993) in
Early Jurassic times (182 Mya). Precambrian cratons referred to in text are shown in gray. The reconstructed
Gondwanide fold belt is denoted by red lines. The Karoo (Africa) and Ferrar (Antarctica) parts of the
Karoo-Ferrar Large Igneous Province, emplaced at approximately this time, are shown in black. Red stars
indicate the positions of hot spots and inferred mantle plumes relative to the major continental fragments.
The positions shown for Tristan da Cunha (between Africa and South America) and Bouvet Island (between
East Antarctica and Africa) are present-day locations; the location for the Karoo hot spot (Africa) is based on
a region of anomalously thin craton coinciding with the intersection of the 160-Ma-old Zimbabwe dikes and
150-Ma-old Jurassic dikes and is shown as a larger star, as it is inferred to be active at this time. Pacific
margin crustal units: (1) Maurice Ewing Bank, (2) Falkland/Malvinas (Lafonian) microplate, (3)
Ellsworth-Whitmore Mountains crustal block, (4) Berkner Island, (5) Antarctic Peninsula, (6) Thurston
Island–Eights Coast crustal block, (7) Eastern Marie Byrd Land block, (8) Western Marie Byrd Land block,
and (9) Zealandia (shape reconstructed to 182 Mya). Patagonia (south of the North Patagonian massif) is
shown in pale yellow. We believe that, along with the Antarctic Peninsula, Patagonia was closer to southern
Africa than depicted here and moved Pacificward by differential crustal stretching between 182 and 160 Mya.
Major continents positioned using seafloor spreading data and PLATES software of the Institute for
Geophysics, The University of Texas at Austin. Abbreviations: K, Kalahari craton; M, Madagascar; P,
Pensacola Mountains; Pt, Patagonia; RP, Rio de la Plata craton; SV, Sierra de la Ventana.
AMALGAMATION OF GONDWANA AND ESTABLISHMENT

OF ITS PANTHALASSIC MARGIN
The junction of the Rio de la Plata, Kalahari, and East Antarctic cratons, now separated by the
South Atlantic and Southern oceans, gave rise to the present Scotia arc region (Figures 1 and 3).
Its history can therefore be traced back to the amalgamation of the cratons to form the Gondwana
supercontinent along Pan-African/Brazilide orogenic sutures (Stern 1994, Meert 2003, Tohver
et al. 2012). This process was diachronous but is widely believed to have been completed toward
the end of Precambrian times, perhaps with small remnant ocean basins of Mediterranean scale
persisting into the Cambrian. Several lines of evidence suggest that the Laurentian craton, the
core of the North American continent, may have been located in the same part of the globe
as the newly amalgamated Gondwana. Thus there may have existed at that time a loose and
comparatively ephemeral supercontinental entity that has been referred to as Pannotia, the “all
southern” supercontinent (Powell 1995; Dalziel 2010, 2013).
770 Dalziel et al.

The latest Precambrian to Cambrian margin of Gondwana may have had a small embay-
ment, or at least an inflection, between the newly amalgamated West and East Gondwana (South
America–Africa and Antarctica-India-Australia, respectively) at the location where the Scotia arc
subsequently developed between the Kalahari craton in Africa and the East Antarctic craton
(Figure 3). Rift-drift transition along the Pacific margin of East Antarctica occurred during the
mid-Neoproterozoic but was probably delayed until near the Precambrian-Cambrian transition
from southern Africa to the proto-Andean margin (Dalziel 1997, 2010, 2013; Cawood 2005). This
reinforces the hypothesis that Laurentia was briefly part of a Pannotian supercontinent before its
present southern margin finally separated from the Coats Land block of East Antarctica and West
Gondwana (Loewy et al. 2011), where the Scotia arc subsequently evolved.
The entire passive margin of Gondwana, from eastern Australia to proto–South America, de-
veloped into a broadly southwestward subducting margin by the latest Neoproterozoic to the
Cambrian, with the South Pole located during that time interval in the area of present North
Africa–northern South America. The resultant Delamerian-Ross orogen of the East Gondwana
margin is exposed in Australia and the Transantarctic Mountains, but its equivalent in the present
South Atlantic–Weddell Sea area is largely buried beneath a thick Phanerozoic sedimentary cover
and is known only from drill cores in Tierra del Fuego (Hervé et al. 2010a). During early
Cambrian times, the active margin was the site of one of the first of Earth’s reef systems.
Fragments of archaeocyathan reef occur along nearly 7,000 km between eastern Australia and
northern Patagonia (Debrenne 2006, González et al. 2011). The reef was located between 30◦ N
and 30◦ S of the equator.
INITIAL FRAGMENTATION OF THE GONDWANA

SUPERCONTINENT
Several major igneous and tectonic events immediately preceded the earliest seafloor spreading
that initiated fragmentation of Gondwana:
1. Latest Paleozoic to early Mesozoic Gondwanide orogenesis, which extended from the Sierra
de la Ventana of Argentina to the Pensacola Mountains along the Transantarctic margin of
East Antarctica (Du Toit 1937);
2. late Early Jurassic (∼183 Mya) emplacement of the Karoo-Ferrar Large Igneous Province
(LIP), which extended from the Kalahari craton to Tasmania (Cox 1992);
3. Middle Jurassic extrusion of voluminous silicic volcanic rocks inboard of the Panthalassic
margin from Patagonia to the Antarctic Peninsula (Pankhurst & Rapela 1995);
4. clockwise rotation and translation of the Lafonian microplate, which includes the Falkland/
Malvinas Islands, from its original location adjacent to southern Africa (Adie 1952, Taylor
& Shaw 1989, Stone et al. 2009); and
5. counterclockwise rotation and translation of the Ellsworth-Whitmore Mountains crustal
block of Antarctica from its original location between southernmost Africa and East
Antarctica (Schopf 1969, Grunow et al. 1987, Randall & Mac Niocaill 2004).
Several diverse explanations of these events have been offered in recent years. The Gondwanide
orogeny has been ascribed to both flat-slab subduction of Panthalassic Ocean lithosphere and
collision of a Patagonian continental entity with the supercontinental margin (Lock 1980; Ramos
1984, 2008). The Karoo-Ferrar LIP is widely ascribed to the effects of a mantle plume (Ellam et al.
1992, Riley et al. 2003). The widespread Jurassic siliceous magmatism surrounding the Scotia arc
region has been attributed to melting of continental crust, possibly related to the immediately
preceding emplacement of the Karoo-Ferrar LIP. Rotation and translation of the Lafonian and

Ellsworth-Whitmore crustal blocks have been suggested to have occurred in relation to crustal
extension, as in the case of the Danakil block in the Afar Triangle (Dalziel & Lawver 2001).
However, the confinement of these events to the far South Atlantic–Weddell Sea area (Figure 3)
and their close association in time suggest a unified tectonic causal mechanism (Pankhurst & Rapela
1995). Here we outline the hypothesis that we have developed to explain this initial fragmentation
of Gondwana, which led to inception of the Scotia arc. It follows from the hypothesis of Dalziel
et al. (2000) that the Gondwanide orogeny resulted from flat-slab subduction, a product of the
upward impingement of a buoyant mantle plume beneath a subducting slab. In this scenario,
the plume eventually broke through the slab thermomechanically to generate the Karoo-Ferrar
LIP. A tectonic situation such as this has recently been imaged using seismic tomography in the
western cordillera of North America, where a plume beneath the Snake River LIP interacts with
the subducting Juan de Fuca plate (Obrebski et al. 2010). However, we now believe that more than
one plume may have been involved, as there is so much time (∼90 Ma) between the Gondwanide
folding and the emplacement of the initial Karoo-Ferrar LIP.

The clue to understanding the mechanism of Gondwana’s initial fragmentation in the South
Atlantic–Weddell Sea region lies in the opposed rotations of the Lafonian and Ellsworth-
Whitmore Mountains crustal blocks. Martin (2007) referred to this phenomenon as double-
saloon-door tectonics and ascribed it to rifting and seafloor spreading above a curved retreat-
ing subduction zone. This does not, however, take into account that the major rotations and
hundreds of kilometers of translation of these geologic entities took place before there was any
seafloor spreading. Moreover, although the translations took place away from the Kalahari and
East Antarctic cratons and toward the Pacific margin magmatic arc (Figures 3 and 4), they did
30°
0°
160 Mya
60°
Callovian
S Middle Jurassic
–30°
M
Africa
India
South Mz
America
RP East
1 Antarctica 90°
SV
2
4 P Australia
–60° 3
5
8
–30° 6 7 –30°
9
–60° –60°
Figure 4
Reconstruction of the developing Scotia arc region in the Middle Jurassic (160 Mya) using the timescale of
Hardenbol et al. (1998) for Mesozoic age equivalents. Note the Pacificward translation and the opposed
rotations of the Falkland/Malvinas microplate (clockwise) and the Ellsworth-Whitmore Mountains crustal
block (counterclockwise) since 182 Mya (Figure 3). Shown in yellow is the area of massive extension of
continental crust with ignimbrite flare-up in the developing Scotia arc region. Incipient oceanic crust
formation in the Somali (S) and Mozambique (Mz) basins is shown in blue. Other abbreviations, colors,
numbers, and symbols as in Figure 3. Major continents positioned using seafloor spreading data and
PLATES software of the Institute for Geophysics, The University of Texas at Austin.
772 Dalziel et al.

not involve any significant compression. The whole process involved extreme extension. The
sedimentary basins east of the Lafonian block on the Falkland/Malvinas Plateau and in the
Weddell Sea floor were apparently formed in the same regional extensional episode (Dalziel
& Lawver 2001). The motions took place as the Karoo-aged dikes were rotated on the Falkland
Islands after the emplacement of the Karoo-Ferrar LIP at ∼183 Mya and prior to the Middle
Jurassic (Stone et al. 2009), and the Ellsworth-Whitmore block had rotated by the time of grani-
toid emplacement at ∼175 Mya (Grunow et al. 1987). This coincides with the early inboard phase
of silicic magmatism, the rhyolite or ignimbrite flare-up on Patagonia and the Antarctic Peninsula
(Pankhurst & Rapela, 1995, Pankhurst et al. 2000). We therefore suggest that, like the rotated
blocks behind the Aegean subduction zone (Brun & Sokoutis 2010), the rocks of the Lafonian and
Ellsworth-Whitmore Mountains crustal blocks moved as part of allochthons on low-angle de-
tachment faults on continental crust and mantle ( Jokat et al. 1997, Studinger & Miller 1999) that
were extending in a ductile fashion above a rapidly retreating subduction zone (I.W.D. Dalziel,
L.A. Lawver, I.O. Norton & L.M. Gahagan, in preparation) (Figure 5).
SEPARATION OF WEST AND EAST GONDWANA

The first seafloor spreading within the Gondwana supercontinent resulted in the separation
of West Gondwana from East Gondwana (Figure 6). The separation of these two large plates
took place with seafloor spreading in the Somali and Mozambique basins along the site of the
major Pan-African East African orogen, their original suture. The earliest marine fossils found
in drill cores from the Maurice Ewing Bank at the eastern tip of the Falkland Plateau have
Indian Ocean/Tethyan affinities (Barker et al. 1977). The oldest marine magnetic anomaly, in
the Mozambique basin, is generally accepted to be M25 (154 Mya) (Bergh 1977, Segoufin &
Patriot 1980, Coffin & Rabinowitz 1988), but the seafloor spreading may have started as early
as ∼180 Mya. As the Weddell Sea opened, the opening oceanic basins apparently continued
westward along the southern margin of the Falkland Plateau and into the Rocas Verdes (“Green
Rocks”) back-arc basin that extended from South Georgia through southern Tierra del Fuego and
north along the Pacific margin of the Patagonian Andes. Fragments of the oceanic basement of this
basin, which was inverted in the mid-Cretaceous, are preserved as ophiolitic complexes with their
turbiditic cover in the Patagonian Andes, the Sarmiento complex, the outlying islands of Tierra
del Fuego, the Tortuga complex, and the Larsen Harbour complex on the island of South Georgia
(Dalziel et al. 1974, Dalziel 1981, Stern & de Wit 2003) (Figure 6). A U-Pb radiometric date of
150 ± 1 Mya has been obtained from zircon in the Smaaland Cove gabbro of the Larsen Harbour
complex (Mukasa & Dalziel 1996). The Rocas Verdes basin is the southernmost part of a
composite back-arc basin extending along the Andes as far as northern Peru (Dalziel 1986). In our
view, the continuity of the lithology and structure of the Rocas Verdes basin of the Patagonian
and Fuegian Andes onto the island of South Georgia permits restoration of the microcontinent on
which it is now located to the oceanic area south of the Burdwood Bank along the western North
Scotia Ridge (Dalziel et al. 1975, Macdonald et al. 1987). As discussed below, this restoration is
absolutely critical in reconstructing the Scotia arc and understanding its evolution. A different
viewpoint has been expressed by Eagles (2010), who reconstructs the South Georgia microconti-
nent south of the Maurice Ewing Bank. In our opinion, this restoration is contrary to compelling
geologic evidence because it entirely separates the island across strike from identical rock units
and structures of the same age in the southernmost Andes, thus requiring the unlikely scenario
of a small and isolated magmatic and tectonic regime in the southeastern corner of the Falkland
Plateau and, critically, failing to explain the missing Andean hinterland south of Burdwood
Bank.

>270 Mya
Sea level
Plume impinges
under Pacific Plume
Ocean floor impinges
? or ? beneath slab
270–240 Mya Accreted

Amagmatic Gondwanide
zone deformation
seamounts
Plume
underplates Subhorizontal
subducted subduction
slab
220 Mya
Continental crust
Oceanic crust
Mantle plume material
200 Mya New oceanic crust
Continental deformation
zones
Plume
impinges
beneath slab
182 Mya
180–165 Mya
774 Dalziel et al.

30°
60°
135 Mya
0° Valanginian
Africa Early Cretaceous
S
M
India
90°
Mz
South
–30° America K
1 East
RP Antarctica
SV 2 Australia
4 P
RV 3
5 8
–30° 7 –30°
6 9
–60° –60°
Figure 6
Two-plate separation of East and West Gondwana. New oceanic crust in the Somali, Mozambique,
Weddell, and Rocas Verdes (RV) basins is shown in dark blue, with thin black lines showing identified
magnetic anomalies and transform offsets. The black zone along the Weddell Sea margin of East Antarctica
is the volcanic seaward-dipping Explora Wedge. Other abbreviations, colors, numbers, and symbols as in
Figures 3 and 4. Major continents positioned using seafloor spreading data and PLATES software of the
Institute for Geophysics, The University of Texas at Austin.
OPENING OF THE ATLANTIC OCEAN BASIN

Initiation of seafloor spreading in the South Atlantic Ocean basin at ∼130 Mya changed the plate
tectonic setting of the evolving Scotia arc region from a two-plate to a three-plate situation in-
volving the South American, African, and Antarctic plates (Figure 7), although Antarctica was
still attached to Australia and Zealandia. The present geography of the Antarctic continent in the
Scotia arc region was basically established with the opening of the Weddell Sea and the rotation
of the Ellsworth-Whitmore Mountains crustal block in the Late Jurassic to Early Cretaceous.
However, extension in the Ross Embayment associated with the separation of the New Zealand
microcontinent followed in the Late Cretaceous, and there was limited Cenozoic seafloor spread-
ing in the Adare Trough at the mouth of the Ross Sea. The West Antarctic rift system is still active,
albeit not a producer of new seafloor. Continuing seafloor spreading in the Weddell Sea resulted in
←−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−
Figure 5
Diagrams illustrating the model for the initial fragmentation of the Gondwana supercontinent described in
the text. The pre-270-Mya cross section shows initial impingement of mantle plume on the subducting
Pacific slab, underplating it and causing the subducted slab to flatten. The 270–240 Mya cross section shows
subhorizontal subduction resulting in Gondwanide deformation and reduction or elimination of arc
volcanism. Normal seafloor subduction and arc volcanism return after the period of Gondwanide
deformation. Approximately 200 Mya, a different mantle plume impinges beneath the subducted slab of
southern Africa, eventually resulting in the Karoo-Ferrar Large Igneous Province at 182 Mya. This major
mantle plume produced massive crustal thinning along the Gondwana margin with resulting slab rollback
and substantial amounts of mantle material leaking around the slab as it rolled back, leading to an ignimbrite
flare-up and allowing the translation and rotation of both the Falkland Islands and the Ellsworth-Whitmore
Mountains continental blocks.

30°
60°
0°
120 Mya
Africa Aptian
Early Cretaceous
M India
90°
South
–30° America K
1
RP East
SV 2 Antarctica Australia
4 P
–30° 5 3 –30°
6 7 8
–60° –60°
Figure 7
Opening of the South Atlantic Ocean basin with Hauterivian-Aptian oceanic crust ( green). Regions of the
Weddell Sea floor and Central Scotia Sea floor that are believed to be contemporaneous are shown in
orange. The large red star indicates the inferred active Tristan da Cunha hot spot/plume; the related
Paraná-Etendeka Large Igneous Province of South America and Africa, respectively, is shown in black
adjacent to the opening ocean basin, together with other large igneous provinces. Other abbreviations,
colors, numbers, and symbols as in Figures 3 and 4. Major continents positioned using seafloor spreading
data and PLATES software of the Institute for Geophysics, The University of Texas at Austin.
extension between the South American and Antarctic plates, including the initiation of motion be-
tween the Antarctic Peninsula and the Andean margin of South America. This took place after the
cessation of oceanic lithosphere formation in the Rocas Verdes basin. The basin was infilled with
turbidites during this time interval. They were derived mainly from the Pacific margin volcanic
arc but also from the continental side of the basin (Dalziel et al. 1975, Macdonald et al. 1987).
During the mid-Cretaceous magnetic quiet interval between approximately 120 and 83 Mya
(Gee & Kent 2007), the length of the spreading ridge in the South Atlantic Ocean basin extended
northward from ∼1,200 km to more than 7,000 km, and the westward rate of motion of the
South American plate relative to the Atlantic hot spot reference frame increased significantly.
This coincided with the initiation of compressional deformation in the Andean Cordillera from
Tierra del Fuego to Peru, the inversion of the composite marginal basin, and the obduction of
the Rocas Verdes ophiolitic basement onto the continental margin (Dalziel 1986). Structures
associated with the basin inversion can be followed along strike from Tierra del Fuego into South
Georgia, which is evidence that the South Georgia microcontinent was part of the southernmost
Andes until at least 95 Mya.
DEVELOPMENT OF THE SCOTIA ARC

We consider that the present-day Scotia arc was initiated in the mid-Cretaceous with the accel-
eration of the westward motion of South America with respect to the Atlantic hot spot reference
frame and the inversion of the Rocas Verdes marginal basin (Figure 8). It was at this time that the
east-west-trending Fuegian Cordillera and the embryonic North Scotia Ridge were uplifted as far
as the eastern end of Burdwood Bank (Figure 2). Moreover, the inversion of the Rocas Verdes
basin in the Fuegian Cordillera involved not only compressional deformation and uplift but also a
776 Dalziel et al.

120 Mya 40 Mya 25 Mya

a –15°
b –45°
c –45°
–30° –60° –60°
–45° 0° –75° L P
FP –30° –75° –30°
SA
SAM
AM
AF
AFR
FR
FR SG
CSS SR
NeGR
SA
SAM
AM L F
FP
SAM
AM
A M L FP SG
AS
–50° R NeGR
CSS S
–60° –60° S
RV SG A
ea AP
AP
CSS ell S Weddell Sea
NT
dd –60°
We
EA
AP AP
A Weddell Sea
–70° –70°
–70°
10 Mya Present
d e f
–1 –60° –45° –60° –45°

Antarctic ice sheets –30° –30°
0 12°C –75° –75°
1 8° SA
SAM
AM L FP
FP SAM L FP
P
SG SG
∂18O
4° NeGR NeGR
2 –50° –50°
b CSS S
3 0° S CSS S
A S
4
c A
e –60° –60°
5 A
APP A
AP
Miocene Oligocene Eocene Weddell Sea Weddell Sea
Pleistocene 10 20 30 40 50 –70° –70°

Pliocene Mya
Figure 8
Tectonic setting of the Scotia arc region for the following times: (a) Early Cretaceous, 120 Mya; (b) mid-Eocene, 40 Mya; (c) late
Oligocene, 25 Mya; (e) late Miocene, 10 Mya; and ( f ) Present, 0 Mya. Black ticks indicate magnetic anomaly picks and thin black lines
indicate magnetic isochrons. Red lines denote transform faults (dashed where inferred). Toothed red lines denote subduction zones,
with the teeth on the upper plate. Newly formed ocean floor is shown in gold: (a) Early Cretaceous, (b) Late Cretaceous, (c) Oligocene,
(e) Oligocene-Miocene, and ( f ) Miocene-Recent. Major continents positioned using seafloor spreading data and PLATES software of
the Institute for Geophysics, The University of Texas at Austin. Latitude and longitude are relative to a hot spot reference frame.
Major continents: AFR, Africa; AP, Antarctic Peninsula; EANT, East Antarctica; SAM, South America. Other features: CSS, Central
Scotia Sea; FP, Falkland/Malvinas Plateau; L, Lafonian microplate; NeGR, Northeast Georgia Rise; RSSA, inferred remnant South
Sandwich arc; RV, Rocas Verdes marginal basin (Late Jurassic ocean floor shown in green); SG, South Georgia microcontinent; SSA,
South Sandwich arc. (d ) Cenozoic climate curve of Zachos et al. (2008) based on deep-sea benthic foraminiferal oxygen isotope data.
The temperature scale on the right axis applies only to the time preceding large-scale glaciation of Antarctica. The times of the
reconstructions shown in panels b, c, and e are indicated.
strike-slip component. This is best demonstrated by the Cooper Bay dislocation on South Georgia,
which involved left-lateral ductile shearing and appears to date from the first compressive phase of
Andean deformation in Tierra del Fuego (Curtis et al. 2010). Hence the mid-Cretaceous orogenic
event initiated not only uplift of the North Scotia Ridge but also elongation of the southern part of
the Fuegian Cordillera, as the South Georgia microcontinent began to slip eastward with respect
to the South American continent. The extent of this motion cannot be quantified, but it appears to
have also involved the floor of the Central Scotia Sea (CSS), with its east-west-trending magnetic
lineations, which we believe may be Early Cretaceous.
It was also in the mid- to Late Cretaceous that South America started to move west with
respect to the Antarctic Peninsula (figure 8 of Cunningham et al. 1995). In the process, the
Antarctic Peninsula appears to have interacted with the western margin of Tierra del Fuego, and
compressional interaction between the two may have been at least partially responsible for the
closure of the widest part of the Rocas Verdes basin and the counterclockwise rotation of the active
arc to form the Patagonian orocline. During the Late Cretaceous, Paleocene, Eocene, and early

Oligocene (∼90–30 Mya), there was apparently little change in the paleogeography of the Scotia
arc region; the Pacific margin cordilleras of the southernmost Andes and the Antarctic Peninsula
maintained the form of an east-facing cusp (Barker & Griffiths 1972, Barker 2001) as seafloor
spreading continued between South America and Africa and between Africa and East Antarctica,
and motion between East and West Antarctica had ceased. The main tectonic activity along the
Pacific margin was the subduction of the Phoenix plate, manifested by the emplacement of calc-
alkaline plutons in the South Patagonian batholith (Hervé et al. 2010b) and along the Antarctic
Peninsula (Millar et al. 2001). In this sense, the evolution from mid-Cretaceous to Present of the
Scotia arc involved three principal plates: South America, Antarctica, and Phoenix.
Late Paleocene to early Eocene rift basin formation in the Andean Cordillera of Tierra del
Fuego (Ghiglione et al. 2009, Barbeau et al. 2009) heralded the start of a new tectonic regime, one
that resulted in the formation of the southern Scotia Sea and the South Scotia Ridge. The crustal
extension represented by the rift formation appears to have been the first sign of the separation
of the southern Andes and the Antarctandes that led to Oligocene seafloor spreading in the West
Scotia Sea (WSS) and hence the opening of the deep Drake Passage oceanic gateway between the
South American and Antarctic continents (Barker & Burrell 1977, Eagles et al. 2005, Livermore
et al. 2007). The spreading in the WSS also resulted in the further eastward motion of the South
Georgia microcontinent with respect to the South American continent, thus lengthening the
North Scotia Ridge beyond Burdwood Bank. Other elements of the North Scotia Ridge are
the informally named Davis, Aurora, and Shag Rocks Banks (Figure 2). The Davis Bank and
Aurora Bank have yielded dredge samples of calc-alkaline volcanic rocks that, although undated,
are petrologically and geochemically similar to those of the Lower Cretaceous Hardy Formation
in southern Tierra del Fuego (Pandey et al. 2010). They are therefore consistent with left lateral
strike-slip motion of crustal elements eastward from Tierra del Fuego (Hervé et al. 2008).
The almost inaccessible Shag Rocks are formed of finely banded epidote-tremolite/actinolite-
stilpnomelane-albite–bearing schists (Tanner 1982). Unfortunately, it is not possible to correlate
these with any other rock units in the region, although they could be equivalents of some of the
pre–Late Jurassic basement schists of Tierra del Fuego. Their east-west-trending, south-dipping
foliation would be in keeping with the fabric of the basement rocks beneath the Upper Jurassic
ignimbritic volcanic rocks exposed on Isla de los Estados at the easternmost tip of Tierra del Fuego
and striking eastward along the southern margin of Burdwood Bank (Dalziel & Palmer 1979).
The elevated banks of the southern Scotia Sea, informally known as Terror Rise, Pirie Bank,
and Bruce Bank (Figure 2), appear to have rifted off the northeast-southwest-trending continental
margin of South America that lies immediately to the east of Cape Horn (Civile et al. 2012). They
are believed to be continental in character (Vuan et al. 2005). The intervening basins may have
started rifting at the same time as the continental rifts in Tierra del Fuego. Dove Basin, between
Pirie and Bruce Banks, for example, appears on the basis of heat flow data to have rifted between 40
and 30 Mya (Maldonado et al. 1998, Barker et al. 2013). A sequence of dredges up the western side
of Pirie Bank are compatible with the geology of Tierra del Fuego, with “gneisses and mica schists”
said to have an age of 579 Ma, “granites” an Early Jurassic age of 183 Ma, “rhyolites, liparites and
basalts” a Middle Jurassic age of 175–169 Ma, and “aleurolites and sandstone” an age of 113 Ma
(Kurentsova & Udintsev 2004). Their sequence and the dredging characteristics (including “fresh
separation marks”) led Schenke & Udintsev (2009) to believe that they were in situ and not ice-
rafted. Precambrian rocks have not been reported in southern Tierra del Fuego, but pre–Late
Jurassic basement gneisses and foliated plutonic rocks have been recovered in drilling operations
in the Magallanes basin foredeep north of the cordillera and are reliably dated as Cambrian with
inherited Precambrian zircons (Hervé et al. 2010a). Hence the correlation of the Pirie Bank dredge
sample with Tierra del Fuego stratigraphy is plausible even though the details of dredging and
778 Dalziel et al.

dating are not available in the English-language literature. Cores recovered from Bruce Bank
contain dinocysts characteristic of nearshore environments, with a high proportion of terrestrial
versus marine kerogens (Mao & Mohr 1995). It was at about the same time as the initial spreading
in the WSS that the South Orkney Islands microcontinent rifted from the tip of the Antarctic
Peninsula, opening up the Powell Basin (32–24 Mya) (King et al. 1997) and thereby initiating the
formation of the South Scotia Ridge.
Multibeam mapping of the floor of the CSS has revealed that the elevated banks of the northern
CSS are constructs superposed on the oceanic basement of both the CSS and the oldest part of
the WSS spreading center (I.W.D. Dalziel, L.A. Lawver, J.A. Pearce, P.F. Barker, A.R. Hastie
& D.N. Barfod, submitted). Samples from dredge localities on elevated features of the northern
CSS, the only ones yet recovered from that area, were judged to be in situ on the basis of dredge
characteristics and manganese coatings. One group of samples comprises basalt lavas, acidic tuffs,
and volcaniclastic sediments, with the lavas characterized by flat chondrite-normalized rare earth
element patterns and negative Nb anomalies. On a Th/Yb-Nb/Yb discriminant diagram, they plot
in the oceanic arc field, at the upper end of the trend formed by the presently active SSA. A second
group of basaltic andesite to dacite lavas and acidic volcaniclastic rocks also plots in the volcanic
arc field on a Th/Yb-Nb/Yb diagram, but in the overlap region between continental and oceanic
arcs. There are also associated volcanogenic sediments. The volcaniclastic rocks from all these
sites predominantly plot in the continental arc field on the discrimination diagrams of Bhatia and
Crook (1986).
40
Ar/39 Ar dating was carried out at the Scottish Universities Environmental Research Centre,
and ages of 28.5 ± 1.4 Ma and 28.6 ± 1 Ma were obtained from one site. These correspond to
comparable volcanic arc compositions and K-Ar ages (28.5–32.8 Ma; weighted average of five
ages 31.0 Ma) (Barker 1995) for samples dredged from the southern forearc of the present South
Sandwich arc (Figure 2). These dredged lavas provide evidence for the oldest volcanic arc activity
in the central and eastern regions of the Scotia Sea. The CSS site was on a volcanic construct,
and the South Sandwich forearc sites may therefore be deduced to have originated in the CSS
at the same time but subsequently been translated eastward by the arc-splitting opening of the
back-arc spreading center of the East Scotia Sea (ESS) (Figure 8). An age of 11.6 ± 0.4 Ma
from a sample at a second site is at the young end of the age range of volcanic arc activity
on Jane Bank to the southeast (Figure 2), which has been dated at 12–17 Mya (K-Ar) (Barker
et al. 1982). The multibeam images of the northern CSS indicate that the volcanic arc samples
appear to be from volcanic constructs resting on older oceanic basement. One of these, in the
northwestern corner of the CSS, includes the rocks dated at ∼28.5 Mya and is informally named
the Starfish because of its appearance in map view. Morphologically it is strikingly similar to the
foundations of the present South Sandwich Island volcanoes (Leat et al. 2010). On its western
side, it overlaps the ocean floor or rifted margin of the Drake Passage gateway (DPG) (Barker &
Burrell 1977, Eagles et al. 2005). On its eastern side, it overlaps the mapped magnetic anomaly
sequence in the CSS, which must therefore be older than ∼28 Ma. This is in keeping with the Early
Cretaceous age we have tentatively assigned on the basis of the seafloor spreading anomalies from
the eastern Weddell Sea (Figure 7). However, the floor of the CSS is more elevated, by ∼1,000 m,
than expected if the basement is as old as Cretaceous (Parsons & Sclater 1977). Nevertheless,
the younger CSS arc magmatism may be responsible for this anomalous elevation (Haschke &
Günther 2003). The volcanic constructs equivalent in age to or older than the oldest oceanic crust
beneath Drake Passage are intermediate between continental arc and oceanic arc affinities. They
appear to represent the submerged equivalent of the present-day SSA, a remnant arc generated
by westward-directed subduction that the geochemical data suggest may be founded partially on a
sliver of continental basement. This remnant South Sandwich arc (RSSA) may have been emergent

South South
Central East Scotia Sandwich Sandwich
Sea level Scotia Rise Ridge arc Trench
6. 6.5
6.0–6.5 6.1 6.5
6.1–6.5
7.0 8.0 7.3 7.0
8.0 7.5 7.7 South
8.0 American
Central Scotia Sea plate
West Scotia Sea East Scotia Sea
~30 Mya to ~6 Mya ~11 Mya to present
1.51 4.00 5.50 6.00 6.50 7.00 7.50 8.00 8.50 250 km
339 km
Velocity (m s –1)
Figure 9
Cross section of the Central and East Scotia Sea region extending east to the South American plate. Gray squares are 100 by 100 km,
with no vertical exaggeration. The deepest recorded earthquake is 339 km (National Earthquake Information Center database), located
250 km from the South Sandwich Trench (heavy blue line). The bathymetry profile (heavy black line) has vertical exaggeration of 6.6 to 1.
Seismic velocities are taken as typical velocities for the Mariana forearc, arc, and back-arc basin, the Mariana Trough, the West
Mariana Ridge, and the Parece Vela basin. The Scotia region equivalents are the South Sandwich forearc and arc, the East Scotia Sea,
the Central Scotia Rise, and the West Scotia Sea. Seismic velocities and depths for the Scotia region are similar but not exactly the same
(Allen 1966, Calvert 2011). Black arrows show regions of Oligocene to Recent seafloor spreading.
(Udintsev & Schenke 2006, Schenke & Udintsev 2009). In Figure 9 we show a structural cross
section of the active SSA and an interpretation of the inferred RSSA based on the present structure
of the West Mariana Ridge, the remnant arc of the western Pacific Mariana arc system.
Seafloor spreading in the WSS continued until sometime between 6.6 and 5.9 Mya (Eagles et al.
2005). It is likely, however, that the South Georgia microcontinent had stopped moving eastward
relative to South America by approximately 9 Mya because of a collision with the Northeast
Georgia Rise (Kristoffersen & La Brecque 1991) (Figure 8). It was at about this time that the
ESS spreading center split the ancestral SSA, leaving the remnant arc in the CSS as arc activity
migrated eastward relative to South America to form the presently active SSA (Figure 8f ). The
collision of the South Georgia microcontinent with the Northeast Georgia Rise, which lies on the
South American plate, is probably the reason for the anomalous elevation of the rugged Allardyce
Range that forms the spine of the island. At ∼3,000 m, it is three times as high as Navarino Island
between Cape Horn and the Beagle Channel, where the correlative rock units and structures
continue in Tierra del Fuego.
The Cenozoic history of the Pacific margin involved the subduction of most of the Phoenix
plate, the only remnant being a small fragment off the South Shetland Islands. The result was
the direct subduction of the Antarctic plate beneath the Andean margin and the migration of
the Nazca–Antarctic–South American triple junction northward to its present position at latitude
∼46◦ S as the Chile Rise was subducted (Breitsprecher & Thorkelsen 2009). This has created
a substantial slab window beneath the southernmost Andes that has changed the nature of the
volcanic arc there and permitted very rapid uplift of the cordillera in response to ice mass loss
(Dietrich et al. 2010).
NEOTECTONICS
The celebrated Canadian geophysicist J. Tuzo Wilson once asked the question, “Are the structures
of the Caribbean and Scotia arc regions analogous to ice rafting?” (Wilson 1966). This implied
780 Dalziel et al.

–50°
T
CT South American South American Plate
Plate
NSRT
NSR
SR
RT
M FFS
MFFS
South
S
Sou
ou
outh
uth
th
San
Sa
S a
an
and
nd
dw
Sandwichwiicch
wic
w h
S
SGG
SGI RT Trench
Tre
Treenc
nchh
–55°
CT 65.8
Scotia mmr/
SSP yea
Scotia ESR
ESR
SFZ
FZ
Z SO
O
SOI SSRT
SS
SSR
SR
SRRT
T
Antarctic Plate E
EI
–60° SS
S
SSF
SSFZ
SFZ
ff–Phoenix
f–P
f– Phoe
hoenix
nix
ix
ix
SST
S T SSR
SS
SRRT
SSRT
SSMP
SSM
SSMP
Bra
Br
Brra
an
a nsfield
nsfi
sfi
field
e d ba
eld
Bransfield basin
siin
basinn
5 mm/year
mm/y
/yea
yea
ar
Antarctic Plate
–65°
–80° –70° –60° –50° –40° –30° –20°
Figure 10
Neotectonics of the Scotia arc region, modified from Smalley et al. (2007) and shown on background of satellite altimetry–derived
gravity field (Sandwell & Smith 2009). Subduction zones are shown in purple, with teeth on the upper plate (dashed where minor/
incipient); transforms and fracture zones are shown in green (blue on continents); active spreading centers are indicated by double red
lines; extinct spreading centers are indicated by dashed black lines. Earthquake slip vectors and GPS velocities: Data are depicted by
orange arrows and model predictions are depicted by red arrows (95% confidence ellipses). Note the different scale for velocity arrows
of the South Sandwich volcanic arc site. Focal mechanism sources are colored as in figure 2 of Smalley et al. (2007). Earthquakes in the
South Sandwich arc are shown for location only. Error ellipses are shown for three vectors; orientation on other vectors varies
smoothly. Abbreviations: CT, Chile Trench; EI, Elephant Island; ESR, East Scotia Ridge; f-Phoenix, former Phoenix plate; MFFS,
Magallanes-Fagnano fault system; NSRT, North Scotia Ridge transform fault; SGI, South Georgia Island; SFZ, Shackleton Fracture
Zone; SOI, South Orkney Islands; SSRT, South Scotia Ridge transform fault; SST, South Shetlands Trench; SSMP, South Shetlands
microplate; SSP, South Sandwich plate.
sinistral strike-slip motion on the northern limbs of the two arcs and dextral motion on their
southern limbs, as rigid tongues of Pacific Ocean lithosphere were emplaced between the conti-
nents to the north and south. Whereas it is widely, if not universally, accepted that the Caribbean
plate is indeed a displaced fragment of the Pacific Ocean floor inserted between the North and
South American continents, it is clear that the Scotia plate was formed by seafloor spreading
between the South American and Antarctic plates during sinistral transtensional relative motion.
Thus both the North and South Scotia ridges mark sites of sinistral displacement. Figure 10
shows earthquake slip vectors and GPS measurements in the Scotia arc region compared with
model predictions (Smalley et al. 2007). Relative to the South American plate the Scotia plate is
moving east at approximately 7.5 mm year−1 , and relative to the Antarctic plate it is moving west
at 6–7 mm year−1 . The directions of motion of the two southern plates with respect to South
America are nearly identical, and hence the difference is mainly that of relative speed. The angular
velocity that best fits the limited data from the American-Antarctic Ridge indicates 18 ± 1 mm
year−1 of essentially east-west motion between the South American and Antarctic plates east of
the Scotia arc.
The Sandwich plate, which carries the South Sandwich arc, has a significantly higher velocity of
65.8 mm year−1 due to the active back-arc seafloor spreading in the ESS. Thomas et al. (2003) have

calculated the spreading rate at the East Scotia Ridge during the Brunhes magnetic interval to be
between 60 and 70 mm year−1 depending on latitude. Interestingly, the Elephant Island subgroup
at the northeastern end of the South Shetland Islands moves with the Scotia plate rather than
the Antarctic plate (Figure 10), while the South Shetland Islands move northwest with respect
to the Antarctic Peninsula due to active rifting in Bransfield Strait (Taylor et al. 2008). Another
complication exists east of the SSA, within the South American plate. DeMets et al. (2010) interpret
scattered earthquakes in a zone between the northeast end of the South Sandwich subduction zone
and the Mid-Atlantic Ridge as indicating the fragmentation of the South American plate in this
area to form a separate Sur (South) microplate due to the obliquity of subduction. Moreover, the
southernmost part of the Sur plate, adjacent to the South Sandwich Fracture Zone, may also have
broken off and may be subducting independently beneath the southern 25% of the SSA.
GLOBAL SIGNIFICANCE
The Scotia arc is a physiographic link between two major continents, South America to the
north and Antarctica to the south, and a discontinuous physiographic barrier between two major
ocean basins, the Pacific to the west and the Atlantic to the east. It is therefore of considerable
biogeographic significance, and it has been proposed as a site of mantle return flow from the
closing Pacific Ocean basin to the opening Atlantic Ocean basin (Alvarez 1982). Moreover, it is
situated at a latitude where the westerly wind system resulting from Earth’s rotation drives the
planet’s mightiest ocean current, the Antarctic Circumpolar Current (ACC), continuously around
the globe. This current has long been regarded as closely linked to Cenozoic global cooling and
the onset of Antarctic glaciation (Kennett 1977; Zachos et al. 2001, 2008).
The high degree of tectonic activity of the boundaries of the Scotia arc makes it an excellent
laboratory for the study of tectonic and magmatic processes such as subduction at the South
Sandwich Trench and back-arc spreading in the ESS. The products of volcanism in the South
Sandwich Islands serve as markers for ocean currents throughout the Southern Ocean and of
atmospheric circulation over Antarctica. The intense earthquake activity at the South Sandwich
subduction zone is utilized in studies of the rotation of Earth’s inner core via seismic waves detected
in Alaska (Sun et al. 2006, Mäkinen & Deuss 2011).
Land Bridges
Three dinosaurs ranging from late Campanian (Olivero et al. 1991, Salgado & Gasparini 2006)
to late Maastrichtian (Hooker et al. 1991, Case et al. 2000) have been found on the Antarctic
Peninsula. Salgado & Gasparini (2006) made the point that the ankylosaur that they found on
James Ross Island at the tip of the peninsula is a different species from the ankylosaur found in the
Rio Negro Province of Patagonia (Salgado & Coria 1996), and they questioned the assumption
that there was still a Late Cretaceous terrestrial connection between Patagonia and Antarctica.
Woodburne & Case (1996), however, suggest that Patagonia and the Antarctic Peninsula had a
“potentially strong physical connection” until at least the early Eocene, on the basis of the affinity
of the placental and marsupial fauna of Seymour Island, also near the tip of the peninsula during
the early part of the early Eocene, 54–51 Mya.
Endemic South American mammals radiated extensively during the Late Cretaceous but were
wiped out by the North American terrestrial mammals that arrived during the Maastrichtian
(Flynn & Wyss 1998). Most of the mammals that had flourished in South America during the
Late Cretaceous were already extinct by the beginning of the Paleogene, although a few survived
to be found with the Laurasian invaders in the Lower Paleocene (Forasiepi & Rougier 2009),
782 Dalziel et al.

with a single monotreme found in South America. The earliest known monotreme is from the
Early Cretaceous of Australia (Archer et al. 1985). Although there are no monotremes known
from Antarctica, the unique early Paleocene Monotrematum sudamericanum (Pascual et al. 1992,
2002) from South America supports the idea that a land bridge from Australia via Antarctica to
South America existed as a pathway until at least the Maastrichtian. Prior to Cenozoic glaciation
and development of the Antarctic ice sheet, with the consequent lowering of sea level (Haq et al.
1987), West Antarctica was in fact a series of large islands strung along an archipelago with some
shallow to bathyal seaways in between (Dalziel & Lawver 2001).
Marsupials originated in North America and dispersed from there in the very latest
Cretaceous (Case et al. 2005). The earliest marsupials in South America are early Paleocene
from Tiupampa, Bolivia (Muizon et al. 1997). Forasiepi & Rougier (2009) noted a Didelphi-
morph from Patagonia that had affinities to one from the middle Eocene of Seymour Island, also
at the tip of the Antarctic Peninsula (Goin et al. 1999). This would make it the youngest of the
early South American–Antarctic marsupials—younger than the first Australian marsupials, from
the early Eocene Tingamarra fauna in southeastern Queensland (Godthelp et al. 1992, 1999),
which presumably reached Australia from Antarctica. Goin et al. (2007) described a marsupial
from the Eocene of the La Meseta Formation of Seymour Island and stated that almost all of
its morphological characters are plesiomorphic when compared with those of South American
marsupials, even with respect to the oldest representatives of this family, which suggests a quite
ancient and southern origin for the Seymour Island marsupial and its ancestors. They went so
far as to suggest that the marsupials originated on the Antarctic continent or in a very restricted
biogeographic region that included southernmost South America and Antarctica.
Woodburne & Zinsmeister (1984) suggested early Eocene timing (approximately 50 Mya) for
the origin of the Seymour Island polydolopids on the basis of the endemism and specialization
they observed in the two Antarctic genera as opposed to the Patagonian members of this extinct
family. Since the paper in which they calculated the age of the fossils to be ∼40 Ma, the age of the
fossil-rich TELM5 (Tertiary Eocene La Meseta 5) bed has been redated as 51.0 to 48.8 Ma by
Ivany et al. (2008). Therefore, the original Woodburne & Zinsmeister (1984) timing for the origin
of the Seymour Island polydolopids would be 60 Mya, or Paleocene. Reguero & Marenssi (2010)
also inferred that the last mammal dispersal between South America and the Antarctic Peninsula
had to have been at the end of the Paleocene or during the earliest Eocene. Although mammals
survived on the Antarctic Peninsula until the very end of the Eocene, ∼34.2 Mya (Bond et al.
2006), the 12 mammal taxa, unlike similar Eocene fauna from Patagonia, represent a bimodal size
distribution. In addition, the sudamericid Sudamerica ameghinoi went extinct in South America by
the late Paleocene but survived in Antarctica until the middle Eocene (Goin et al. 2007). Reguero
& Marenssi (2010) suggest that the South American mammals immigrated to Antarctica as late
as the Early Eocene Climatic Optimum (∼53 to 51 Mya) (Zachos et al. 2008) and then became
isolated, with the survivors becoming endemic species.
Gateway to Oceanic Circulation

Opening of deep Southern Ocean gateways between Antarctica and South America and between
Antarctica and Australia—which permitted complete circum-Antarctic circulation, the Antarctic
Circumpolar Current (ACC)—was important to the transition from a warm Earth in the early
Cenozoic to the subsequent much cooler conditions that persist to the present day. Opening of
Drake Passage and the WSS (Figure 1) probably broke the final barrier formed by the Andes
of Tierra del Fuego and the Antarctandes of the Antarctic Peninsula. Once this deep gateway,
usually referred to simply as the Drake Passage gateway, was created, the strong and persistent

midlatitude winds could generate one of the largest deep currents on Earth at ∼135 Sv. This event
is widely believed to be closely associated in time with a major, abrupt drop in global temperatures
(Zachos et al. 2001) and the rapid expansion of the Antarctic ice sheets at 33–34 Mya, the Eocene-
Oligocene boundary (Kennett 1977). Although some computer models downplay the significance
of deep ocean gateways in the change from greenhouse to icehouse conditions (Huber & Nof
2006) and point instead to the importance of declining atmospheric CO2 (De Conto & Pollard
2003), other climate models do indicate possible Antarctic cooling after ACC onset under high
CO2 conditions (Sijp et al. 2009), and so the debate continues.
Surprisingly, in view of the DPG’s importance to oceanic circulation, global climate, biological
evolution, and hence the Earth system as a whole, however, the events leading to the complete
opening of this gateway are very poorly understood. Indeed, even the time and exact place at which
the first deep connection between the southern Pacific and Atlantic Ocean basins was initiated
are speculative. A geochemical study of fish teeth indicates that Pacific Ocean water may have
been present in the South Atlantic by 41 Mya (Scher & Martin 2006), but that flow could have
occurred between the crustal blocks of West Antarctica, over a shallow sill south of Cape Horn
as a result of early rifting prior to the opening of a deep channel (Ghiglione et al. 2008), or even
via an equatorial seaway.
With the CSS immediately east of the presumed deep-water DPG at the time it was opening via
seafloor spreading in the WSS, the mid-Oligocene arc in the CSS (the RSSA) would have formed a
significant barrier to circumpolar current flow even as a deep oceanic gateway formed via seafloor
spreading between Tierra del Fuego and the tip of the Antarctic Peninsula. A deep ACC is not
likely to have developed until the ancestral SSA subsided and significant gaps developed in the
North Scotia Ridge. The evidence from the CSS indicates this would have been significantly after
the onset of Antarctic glaciation, and it is tempting to suggest that it was delayed until after the
Middle Miocene Climatic Optimum and may have played a role in the subsequent cooling and
intensification of Antarctic glaciation (Zachos et al. 2001, Anderson et al. 2011) and the onset of
Patagonian glaciation (Rabassa et al. 2005).
Although the area of the SSA can rightly be regarded as one of the most remote on Earth from
human habitation, volcanic and tectonic activity there have influenced, and may in the future
influence, far-flung areas. Anyone walking the shores of Tierra del Fuego or the South Shetland
Islands is struck by the amount of pumice to be seen on the storm beaches. Risso et al. (2002)
have conducted petrologic and geochemical studies of the pumice and determined that it most
likely came from a huge raft erupted in the course of a 1962 eruption on the submerged Protector
Shoal to the north of Zavodovski Island, the northernmost of the South Sandwich Island chain.
Comparison samples collected from the raft close to the time of the eruption and from the shores of
Tasmania and the Australian mainland indicate that all are identical. This leads to the conclusion
that after the raft broke up, pumice fragments were dispersed by the westerly winds and the
ACC completely around the planet at a latitude of 55–60◦ S—a distance of more than 20,000 km.
Finer-grained material recovered as tephra layers in the EPICA–Dome C ice record drilled on the
East Antarctic Ice Sheet at 75◦ 06 S, 121◦ 21 E has also been traced to the South Sandwich Island
volcanoes. Narcisi et al. (2005) have determined that 5 of 13 discrete tephra layers identified
in a 200,000-year ice core section are geochemically distinguishable as having been explosively
erupted from the SSA. This finding indicates that atmospheric circulation was spiraling eastward
and southward over the Antarctic continent over that time span. The tephra provide valuable
correlation markers in widely separated ice cores from the continent. Finally, and perhaps most
significantly for humans, modeling of a 1929 magnitude 8.3 earthquake at the northern end of the
SSA (Okal & Hartnady 2009) has demonstrated that tsunami waves generated there tend to be
focused by the submarine topography of the South Atlantic Ocean and southwest Indian Ocean
784 Dalziel et al.

to become enhanced in parts of West Africa and southern Africa where run-up over shallow areas
of the continental shelf could generate hazardous conditions.
Gateway to Mantle Flow?

The Caribbean and Scotia arcs have been suggested to be the foci of asthenospheric return flow
from the closing Pacific Ocean basin into the opening Atlantic Ocean basin (Alvarez 1982). The
Patagonian orocline (Carey 1955), where the north-south-trending Andean Cordillera swings
sharply eastward through 90◦ (Figures 1 and 2) into the North Scotia Ridge, has also been
proposed as the location of corner flow, where north-to-south-directed asthenospheric flow be-
neath the Nazca and Antarctic plates as they are subducted beneath the South American plate,
inferred from shear wave splitting, is deflected eastward into the Scotia arc (Russo & Silver 1996).
Geochemical data (Pb isotopes in dredged seafloor basalts) indicate that Pacific mantle flowed
into the Scotia arc during formation of the Scotia plate (Pearce et al. 2001). Results of a shear
wave splitting study indicate that such flow may be weak at present (Helffrich et al. 2002); how-
ever, isotopic fingerprinting (Pearce et al. 2001) identified a major boundary between Pacific and
Atlantic mantle sources somewhere within the Scotia Sea. Recognition of the RSSA suggests that
boundary is the remnant arc itself, because the rocks generated at the WSS spreading center have
a Pacific mantle isotopic signature and those formed at the East Scotia Ridge spreading center
behind the SSA have an Atlantic signature. Apparently, mantle has been able to flow around the
subducting slab from beneath the southernmost part of the South American plate [the separate
Sur plate of DeMets et al. (2010)] into the mantle wedge beneath the back-arc basin (Bruguier &
Livermore 2001).
Hydrothermal Vents and the Subduction Process

The East Scotia Ridge has recently been reported as the site of deep-sea hydrothermal vents hosting
high-temperature black smokers (>375◦ C) and diffuse venting (German et al. 2000, Rogers et al.
2012). The chemosynthetic ecosystems hosted by these vents are dominated by a new species of
yeti crab (Kiwa sp.), stalked barnacles, limpets, peltospiroid gastropods, anemones, and a predatory
sea star. This discovery is highly significant because the East Scotia Ridge vent systems represent a
new vent biogeographic province, and thus, considered with hydrothermal vents in other oceans,
it indicates greater global complexity than previously recognized. In contrast to taxa abundant
in vent ecosystems in other oceans, certain worms, mussels, and shrimps are absent. This means
that the Southern Ocean may serve as a dispersal filter for vent taxa, in keeping with the idea that
the Polar Front portion of the ACC (Figure 2) represents an abrupt physical boundary condition
extending from the surface of the ocean to the seafloor. Conversely, the eastward flow of the ACC
might be expected to enhance the faunal dispersal in the Southern Ocean as a whole. Rogers et al.
(2012) therefore suggest further investigation of high-southern-latitude ridges to fully understand
the global biogeography of vent systems.
The simple tectonic setting of the SSA and the back-arc East Scotia Ridge is proving to
be a spectacularly fertile laboratory for the study of subduction mechanisms and subduction-
related magmatic processes. The arc is sited on a young oceanic crust, erupts low-K tholeiitic
rocks, and is ideal for assessing element transport through subduction zones. Tonarini et al.
(2011) have used boron concentrations and isotopic compositions in representative lavas from
along the arc to determine the transfer of subduction-related fluids from the slab to the mantle
wedge. Their samples show δ11 B values among the highest so far reported for mantle-derived
lavas. Peridotites dredged from the forearc trench also have high δ11 B (approximately +10)

and elevated B contents (38–140 ppm). The unusually high δ11 B values inferred for the South
Sandwich mantle wedge cannot easily be attributed to direct incorporation of subducting slab
materials or fluids. Rather, the authors believe that the heavy B isotopic values come from fluids
derived from subduction erosion of altered frontal arc mantle wedge materials similar to those in
the Mariana forearc. In the back-arc basin, Leat et al. (2004) have been able to demonstrate that
rocks near the northern and southern edges of the downgoing slab have more fertile mantle than
those dredged from nearer to the center of the basin. They argue that rollback of the slab forced
sideways flow of relatively enriched mantle into the mantle wedge, which is clearly in keeping
with the Atlantic isotopic signature of the lavas, while convergence of the arc with the back-arc
spreading center imparted a greater subduction component into the back-arc lavas. There may
also have been anomalous heating of the slab, resulting in enhanced subduction fluxes and an
increase in the contribution of sediment melts.
SUMMARY
The Scotia arc region has a complex tectonic history resulting from the breakup of the Gondwana
supercontinent and the ensuing relative motions of the South American, Antarctic, and African
continents. The Paleozoic basement of southernmost South America and the Antarctic Peninsula
originated at the Pacific margin of the Gondwana supercontinent shortly after its amalgama-
tion along the Cambrian-Ordovician continental margin, the Ross-Delamerian arc. The two
limbs of the Scotia arc separated from Gondwana during the Mesozoic at a singular location be-
tween the East Antarctic and Kalahari cratons. Initial seafloor spreading between East and West
Gondwana followed unusually widespread and extreme stretching of the supercontinental litho-
sphere, involving translation and rotation of large-scale crustal blocks between the two cratons,
possibly on low-angle detachment faults, accompanied by an ignimbrite flare-up in the mid- to Late
Jurassic. These processes were probably driven by rapid trench rollback at the Panthalassic margin
of Gondwana, a situation tectonically analogous to the present-day Aegean basin and volcanic arc.
Seafloor spreading propagated from the Mozambique and Somali basins westward into the
Weddell Sea and the Rocas Verdes basin, along the southernmost South American margin, before
the Early Cretaceous opening of the South Atlantic Ocean basin. The latter opening generated a
third plate by separating South America and Africa. Mid-Cretaceous acceleration of the westward
motion of the South American plate relative to the African plate was the likely driving force for
the initial compressive uplift of the Andean-Antarctandean Cordillera. This also appears to have
initiated the relative motion between the South American and Antarctic plates that resulted in the
present-day Scotia arc.
The North and South Scotia Ridges resulted from the eastward motion of fragments of the
Pacific margin cordillera of both South America and Antarctica that was initiated in the early
Cenozoic as the result of left-lateral transtensional relative motion between the two continents.
This resulted in seafloor spreading that generated the northwestern and southeastern portions
of today’s Scotia plate. The presently active South Sandwich volcanic arc had its origin in
westward-directed subduction during the Neogene. Opening of the ESS over approximately the
past 10 Ma left a foundered remnant arc beneath the CSS as the SSA rolled back to the east, as
it continues to do.
The Scotia arc region has been, and will continue to be, a valuable laboratory for studying
subduction-related processes. The region has played a critical role in paleobiogeography: the
opening of a complex seaway isolating terrestrial faunas in South America and Antarctica but per-
mitting biota to travel between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. It represents a fascinating interplay
786 Dalziel et al.

of tectonics with oceanic and atmospheric circulation that is critical today for understanding the
Earth system at a time of major change.
DISCLOSURE STATEMENT
The authors are not aware of any affiliations, memberships, funding, or financial holdings that
might be perceived as affecting the objectivity of this review.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This article is the result of numerous cruises, field excursions, and interactions with other research
scientists with a broad spectrum of research interests. These colleagues are from a number of
different countries including Argentina, Chile, the United Kingdom, Italy, Germany, and South
Africa, as well as the United States. In particular, we would like to dedicate this review to Peter
F. Barker, formerly with the British Antarctic Survey, who passed away on June 25, 2012, while
this article was being written. Peter spent his long and distinguished career studying the Scotia
Sea and he wrote many of the foundational papers concerning the region. I.W.D.D. and L.A.L.
have received numerous grants to study the Scotia Arc region from the US National Science
Foundation. The most recent was grant 0636850 for work in the Central Scotia Sea, preliminary
results of which are outlined in this article. I.W.D.D., L.A.L., I.O.N., and L.M.G. are also funded
in part by the industry-supported PLATES Project as well as by the Institute for Geophysics, a
component of the Jackson School of Geosciences, the University of Texas at Austin. Some figures
were drafted using Generic Mapping Tools software (http://gmt.soest.hawaii.edu/). This article
is University of Texas Institute for Geophysics Contribution 2562.
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The Meaning of Stromatolites

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Global Cooling by Grassland Soils of the Geological Past
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Initiation and Evolution of Plate Tectonics on Earth:
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Miller-Urey and Beyond: What Have We Learned About Prebiotic
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Assessing the Use of Archaeal Lipids as Marine Environmental Proxies
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Heat Flow, Heat Generation, and the Thermal State
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The Behavior of the Lithosphere on Seismic to Geologic Timescales

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The Formation and Dynamics of Super-Earth Planets
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The Late Paleozoic Ice Age: An Evolving Paradigm
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Composition and State of the Core
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Earth’s Background Free Oscillations
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Global Warming and Neotropical Rainforests: A Historical Perspective
Carlos Jaramillo and Andrés Cárdenas p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p 741
The Scotia Arc: Genesis, Evolution, Global Significance
Ian W.D. Dalziel, Lawrence A. Lawver, Ian O. Norton,
and Lisa M. Gahagan p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p 767
Contents ix

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Annu. Rev. Earth Planet. Sci. 2013. 41:767–93 Keywords

The Annual Review of Earth and Planetary Sciences is Abstract

THE SCOTIA ARC IN SPACE AND TIME

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Antarctic Weddell Sea

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AMALGAMATION OF GONDWANA AND ESTABLISHMENT

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SEPARATION OF WEST AND EAST GONDWANA

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270–240 Mya Accreted

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OPENING OF THE ATLANTIC OCEAN BASIN

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beneath Patagonia and the Antarctic Peninsula. Tectonophysics 464:10–20

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150 my of granite magmatism on a plate margin. Lithos 97:373–94

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segmentation versus spreading rate. J. Geophys. Res. 114:B01411

792 Dalziel et al.

implications. J. Paleontol. 58:913–48

www.annualreviews.org • The Scotia Arc 793

The Meaning of Stromatolites

The Betic-Rif Arc and Its Orogenic Hinterland: A Review

The Behavior of the Lithosphere on Seismic to Geologic Timescales

A.B. Watts, S.J. Zhong, and J. Hunter p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p 443

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