earth science

Mackenzie Large Igneous Province

Mackenzie Large Igneous Province is a earth science topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Mackenzie Large Igneous Province rather than just read about it. In short: The Mackenzie Large Igneous Province (MLIP) is a major Mesoproterozoic large igneous province of the southwestern, western and northwestern Canadian Shield in Canada. It consists of a group of related igneous rocks that were formed during a massive igneous event starting about 1,270 million years ago.

Key takeaways

Mackenzie Large Igneous Province belongs to earth science; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Mackenzie Large Igneous Province to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Mackenzie Large Igneous Province from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

The Mackenzie Large Igneous Province (MLIP) is a major Mesoproterozoic large igneous province of the southwestern, western and northwestern Canadian Shield in Canada. It consists of a group of related igneous rocks that were formed during a massive igneous event starting about 1,270 million years ago. The large igneous province extends from the Arctic in Nunavut to near the Great Lakes in Northwestern Ontario where it meets with the smaller Matachewan dike swarm. Included in the Mackenzie Large Igneous Province are the large Muskox layered intrusion, the Coppermine River flood basalt sequence and the massive northwesterly trending Mackenzie dike swarm. As a large igneous province, it is an extremely large area of related igneous rocks that were emplaced over an extremely short geological time span. The igneous rocks comprising the Mackenzie Large Igneous Province originated from processes not associated with normal plate tectonics and seafloor spreading. It is one of the several large igneous provinces scattered throughout the Canadian landscape, which can be thousands of kilometres in volume and area. The Mackenzie Large Igneous Province is one of the world's largest Proterozoic magmatic provinces, as well as one of the most well-preserved continental flood basalt terrains on Earth. Igneous rocks of the Mackenzie Large Igneous Province are generally mafic in composition, including basalt and gabbro. Even though the Mackenzie Large Igneous Province is classified as a large igneous province like other extremely large accumulations of igneous rocks on Earth, it is much larger than large igneous province standards. The standard size classification for large igneous provinces is a minimum areal extent of 100,000 km2 (39,000 mi2). However, the Mackenzie dike swarm itself occupies an area of at least 2,700,000 km2 (1,000,000 mi2), making the Mackenzie Large Igneous Province larger than the Ontong Java Plateau (in the southwestern Pacific Ocean) and the U.S. state of Alaska.

Geology

Origins Like most large igneous provinces, the Mackenzie Large Igneous Province has its origins in a mantle plume—an upwelling zone of abnormally hot rock within the Earth's mantle. As the head of the Mackenzie plume encountered the Earth's lithosphere, it spread out and melted catastrophically to form large volumes of basaltic magma. This resulted in the creation of a stationary volcanic zone west of Victoria Island that experienced considerable volcanism known as the Mackenzie hotspot. Evidence for the Mackenzie hotspot include the existence of the giant mafic Mackenzie dike swarm because of its fanning pattern adjacent to the Muskox intrusion. The size of the Mackenzie hotspot is considered to have been about 1,000 km (620 miles) in diameter. This calculation is based on the analysis of magmatic fabric in the Mackenzie dike swarm, which shows that magma flow was only vertical close to the middle of the Mackenzie plume and only subhorizontal away from the plume. However, if subhorizontal flow is a result of dike ascent to a level of impartial lightness in the Earth's crust, it would not be related to the size of the Mackenzie plume. Instead, the analysis of dike swarm geometry could possibly maintain evidence for the smallest diameter of the Mackenzie plume. The outer limit separating the zone of fanning dike geometry and subparallel dikes might be suggestive of the smallest diameter for the Mackenzie plume because it is not probable that the stress related to a magmatic zone has consequence over a region that is lesser than the Mackenzie plume, which created the feature. From this analysis, the smallest diameter of the Mackenzie plume would have been about 2,000 km (1,200 mi). Uranium-lead dating of certain Mackenzie dikes from an array of distances from an assigned focal point give an age of 1267 ± 2 million years. This indicates that the Mackenzie hotspot essentially emplaced the Mackenzie Large Igneous Province as a whole throughout the associated landscape. The associated Mackenzie plume is consistent with mantle plumes that have deep origins within the Earth's mantle. The Mackenzie hotspot is interpreted to have been similar to the early volcanism of the Yellowstone hotspot. Both hotspots produced massive qualities of basaltic lava flows that were identical with the formation of dike swarms during a short period of time at the beginning of mantle plume volcanism. It is estimated that the majority of volcanism that formed the Mackenzie Large Igneous Province took place for no more than two million years, and subsequent volcanism is unknown. However, the younger and smaller Franklin Large Igneous Province just to the northeast is considered to have been formed by a similar mantle plume between 727 and 721 million years ago. The short time span of two million years for magma emplacement in the Mackenzie Large Igneous Province is also present for the Yellowstone hotspot.

Extensional forces

… excerpt ends here. Continue reading the full article.

Illustrations

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Mackenzie Large Igneous Province

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Mackenzie Large Igneous Province claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In earth science, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Mackenzie Large Igneous Province before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Mackenzie Large Igneous Province ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Mackenzie Large Igneous Province

In research: Mackenzie Large Igneous Province appears in earth science research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Mackenzie Large Igneous Province in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Mackenzie Large Igneous Province is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics Economic geology, Historical geology, Hotspot volcanism, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Mackenzie Large Igneous Province outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

Ask Teacher Smith questions about this articleOpens your AI tutor with a question about “Mackenzie Large Igneous Province” →

Affiliate

Preply — study more efficiently by working with a personal tutor. 50% off.

How to study Mackenzie Large Igneous Province in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Mackenzie Large Igneous Province means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Mackenzie Large Igneous Province out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Mackenzie Large Igneous Province in simple terms?

Why does Mackenzie Large Igneous Province matter?

Because it connects several earth science ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Mackenzie Large Igneous Province?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Mackenzie Large Igneous Province.