Alfred Wegener Institut, Helmholtz Zentrum Für Polar Und Meeresforschung, Am Alten Hafen 26, 27568, Bremerhaven, Germany.
Sci Rep. 2020 Nov 17;10(1):19994. doi: 10.1038/s41598-020-77070-6.
Uncertainty about the structure of the Falkland Plateau Basin has long hindered understanding of tectonic evolution in southwest Gondwana. New aeromagnetic data from the basin reveal Jurassic-onset seafloor spreading by motion of a single newly-recognized plate, Skytrain, which also governed continental extension in the Weddell Sea Embayment and possibly further afield in Antarctica. The Skytrain plate resolves a nearly century-old controversy by requiring a South American setting for the Falkland Islands in Gondwana. The Skytrain plate's later motion provides a unifying context for post-Cambrian wide-angle paleomagnetic rotation, Cretaceous uplift, and post-Permian oblique collision in the Ellsworth Mountains of Antarctica. Further north, the Skytrain plate's margins built a continuous conjugate ocean to the Weddell Sea in the Falkland Plateau Basin and central Scotia Sea. This ocean rules out venerable correlation-based interpretations for a Pacific margin location and subsequent long-distance translation of the South Georgia microcontinent as the Drake Passage gateway opened.
福克兰高原盆地的构造不确定性长期以来一直阻碍了对西南冈瓦纳构造演化的理解。来自该盆地的新航空磁力数据揭示了侏罗纪开始的海底扩张，这是由一个新识别的板块——Skytrain 的运动引起的，该板块也控制了威德尔海湾和南极洲更远地区的大陆伸展。Skytrain 板块通过要求福克兰群岛在冈瓦纳处于南美洲的位置解决了近一个世纪的争议。Skytrain 板块的后期运动为后寒武纪广角古地磁旋转、白垩纪隆起以及南极洲埃尔斯沃思山脉后二叠纪斜向碰撞提供了一个统一的背景。再往北，Skytrain 板块的边缘在福克兰高原盆地和斯科舍海的中心建造了一个与威德尔海连续的共轭海洋。这个海洋排除了以前基于相关性的解释，即福克兰海盆和斯科舍海中心存在一个太平洋边缘位置，以及随后随着德雷克海峡的开放，南乔治亚微大陆的长途平移。
