Broken Ridge or Broken Plateau is an oceanic plateau in the south-eastern Indian Ocean. Broken Ridge once formed a large igneous province together with the Kerguelen Plateau. When Australia and Antarctica started to separate, Broken Ridge and the Kerguelen Plateau got separated by the Southeast Indian Ridge. Alkalicbasalt from Broken Ridge has been dated to 95 Ma. Broken Ridge stretches from the southern end of Ninety East Ridge towards the south-western corner of Australia. It is up to wide and reaches below sea level. It is separated from the Diamantina Fracture Zone on its southern side by a escarpment, while on the northern side the ridge slopes gently towards the abyssal Wharton Basin. The sediment cover on the ridge reaches and the Moho is found at about. It is separated from the Naturaliste Plateau by the Dirck Hartog Ridge. The Kerguelen LIP covered making it the second largest LIP on Earth. Both these enormous LIPs reaches above the surrounding ocean floor and have a crustal thickness of The Broken Ridge and Kerguelen Plateau are now separated by. When they broke-up, the southern flank of Broken Ridge was uplifted some and reached above sea level. The Kerguelen LIP has a long and complicated history, however, and is probably the least "typical" of all LIPs. Rocks from both the Broken Ridge and the Kerguelen Plateau contain a continental component or "fingerprint". In the Early Cretaceous, the Kerguelen hotspot was split into several diapirs of various sizes, composition, and ascent rates. These separate diapirs created the Bunbury Basalt, the Southern Kerguelen Plateau, the Rajmahal Traps/Indian lamprophyres, Antarctic lamprophyres, and the Central Kerguelen Plateau/Broken Ridge. In the late Cretaceous, activity in the mantle slowed and the Kerguelen hotspot was reduced to a single plume which created the NinetyEast Ridge. 120-95 Ma when the Southern and Central Kerguelen Plateau formed together with the Broken Ridge, the Kerguelen hotspot produced /year, but 95-25 Ma the output decreased to.
