The Kerguelen hotspot is a

volcanic A volcano is a rupture in the crust of a planetary-mass object, such as Earth, that allows hot lava, volcanic ash, and gases to escape from a magma chamber below the surface. On Earth, volcanoes are most often found where tectonic plates a ...

hotspot at the

Kerguelen Plateau The Kerguelen Plateau (, ), also known as the Kerguelen–Heard Plateau, is an oceanic plateau and a large igneous province (LIP) located on the Antarctic Plate, in the southern Indian Ocean. It is about to the southwest of Australia and is ...

in the Southern

Indian Ocean The Indian Ocean is the third-largest of the world's five oceanic divisions, covering or ~19.8% of the water on Earth's surface. It is bounded by Asia to the north, Africa to the west and Australia to the east. To the south it is bounded by t ...

. The Kerguelen hotspot has produced

basalt Basalt (; ) is an aphanitic (fine-grained) extrusive igneous rock formed from the rapid cooling of low-viscosity lava rich in magnesium and iron (mafic lava) exposed at or very near the surface of a rocky planet or moon. More than 90 ...

lava Lava is molten or partially molten rock (magma) that has been expelled from the interior of a terrestrial planet (such as Earth) or a moon onto its surface. Lava may be erupted at a volcano or through a fracture in the crust, on land or un ...

for about 130 million years and has also produced the Kerguelen Islands,

Naturaliste Plateau The Naturaliste Plateau is one of several large submarine plateaus extending from Western Australia into the Indian Ocean. It is a rectilinear plateau that covers an area of 90,000 square kilometres. Its width is about east-west and north-so ...

Heard Island The Territory of Heard Island and McDonald Islands (HIMI) is an Australian external territory comprising a volcanic group of mostly barren Antarctic islands, about two-thirds of the way from Madagascar to Antarctica. The group's overall size ...

, the

McDonald Islands The McDonald Islands () are an uninhabited archipelago in the southern Indian Ocean in the vicinity of Heard Island (). Together with Heard Island, they make up the Australian external Territory of Heard Island and McDonald Islands. The McDona ...

, the

Ninety East Ridge The Ninety East Ridge (also rendered as Ninetyeast Ridge, 90E Ridge or 90°E Ridge) is a mid-ocean ridge on the Indian Ocean floor named for its near-parallel strike along the 90th meridian at the center of the Eastern Hemisphere. It is approxima ...

and

Rajmahal Traps The Rajmahal Traps is a volcanic igneous province in Eastern India, covering the parts of Jharkhand, West Bengal and Meghalaya. The Rajmahal Hills of Jharkhand is the type area of this province. Multiple layers of solidified lava made the Rajma ...

References

Hotspots of the Indian Ocean Geography of the Kerguelen Islands {{FrenchSouthernTerritories-geo-stub