Large Igneous Provinces - Motivations For Study of LIPs

Motivations For Study of LIPs

Large igneous provinces (LIPs) are created during short-lived igneous events resulting in relatively rapid and high-volume accumulations of volcanic and intrusive igneous rock. These events warrant study because:

• The study of LIPs has economic implications. Some workers associate them with trapped hydrocarbons. They are associated with economic concentrations of copper–nickel and iron. They are also associated with formation of major mineral provinces including Platinum-Group Element (PGE) Deposits, and in the Silicic LIPs, silver and gold deposits. Titanium and vanadium deposits are also found in association with LIPs.
• Future LIP events may pose a hazard to human civilization. LIPs in the geological record have marked major changes in the hydrosphere and atmosphere, leading to major climate shifts and maybe mass extinctions of species.
• Plate tectonic theory explains topography using interactions between the tectonic plates, as influenced by viscous stresses created by flow within the underlying mantle. Since the mantle is extremely viscous, the mantle flow rate varies in pulses which are reflected in the lithosphere by small amplitude, long wavelength undulations. Understanding how the interaction between mantle flow and lithosphere elevation influences formation of LIPs is important to gaining insights into past mantle dynamics.
• LIPs have played a major role in continental breakup, continental formation, new crustal additions from the upper mantle, and supercontinent cycles.