Revised history of early Tertiary plate motion in the south-west Pacific

Reanalysis of early Tertiary magnetic anomalies on the Pacific plate south of the Campbell Plateau indicates that in early Tertiary time there was a previously unrecognized triple junction of the Pacific, the Antarctic, and a third plate now beneath the Bellingshausen sea. Corresponding revised parameters for Pacific–Antarctica motion do not require early Tertiary displacements within Antarctica or New Zealand, but suggest a change in direction of the Pacific plate over the hotspots of approximately the same sense and timing as the Hawaiian–Emperor bend.