The Bransfield, Prince Gustav, and Larsen Rifts form a unique triple volcanic rift system that straddles the northern tip of the antarctic Peninsula parallel to the South Shetland Trench and Island Arc. The Bransfield Rift has created the Bransfield Strait back-arc basin that separates the South Shetland Island Arc from the northwest tip of the Antarctic Peninsula. This project includes a detailed geochemical and petrological study of the volcanism produced in the earliest stages of the rifting of an arc and the creation of a back-arc basin. All three of the rifts in this system have produced Late Tertiary-Recent alkali basalts that provide a unique opportunity to sample the chemistry of a subduction contaminated mantle wedge. By analyzing the geochemistry, petrology and isotopic signature of the recent, simultaneous volcanisms in these three rifts. This project will be able to constrain the chemical and spatial extent of chemical contamination of a mantle wedge by a subducting lithospheric slab.
