The limited extent of plume-lithosphere interactions during continental flood-basalt genesis: geochemical evidence from Cretaceous magmatism in southern Brazil

Abstract It has been suggested that large areas of the Earth's lithospheric mantle undergo pervasive dehydration melting during the impact of mantle plumes and the Early-Cretaceous Paraná-Etendeka continental flood-basalt (CFB) province has repeatedly been cited as evidence of this phenomenon. During the Cretaceous, however, southern Brazil experienced two phases of mafic magmatism. These igneous events occurred ∼50 Ma apart and therefore …