south; the Bunbury Basalt (Western Australia) 137–130.5 ; the Naturaliste Plateau (offshore Western Australia) formed 132–128 ; the Rajmahal Traps in Northeast India 118–117 ; and finally lamprophyres in India and Antarctica 115–114 . India–Australia breakup The oldest volcanism that can be attributed to the Kerguelen plume are the Bunbury Basalt (137–130.5 ) and Naturaliste Plateau (132–128 ) in southwestern Australia, and the Rajmahal Traps in eastern India (118 ). The formation of the oldest portion of the Kerguelen LIP and these continental basalts are linked to the opening of the eastern Indian Ocean. The Bunbury Basalt is not of flood basalt dimensions which suggests that the mantle underlying the newly formed Kerguelen hotspot was neither significantly hot, wet, or voluminous. In contrast, the magmatism that produced the Australia–India breakup 136–158 created the Wallaby Plateau, but no known hotspot has been linked to this event. India–Antarctica breakup The output from the Kerguelen hotspot peaked 120–95 , 12–70 after the India–Antarctica breakup. No ridges or hotspot tracks such as Walvis–Rio Grande, Chagos–Laccadive, Greenland–Scotland have been found in the Princess Elizabeth Trough between SKP and Antarctica or along India's conjugate eastern continental margin. The relation between the Kerguelen hotspot and these continental breakup and volcanic margins is instead similar to that between the Réunion hotspot and the Deccan Traps and the breakup between western India and the Seychelles. The peak output of the Kerguelen hotspot coincides with one or several microcontinent formations, such as the Elan Bank. Since the Indian Ocean began to open about 130 , the Kerguelen hotspot has moved 3–10° southward and, consequently, the spreading ridge between India and Antarctica has jumped northward one or several times. Parts of the Kerguelen Plateau, the Elan Bank and the SKP, were originally attached to India and are composed of continental lithosphere. One or several ridge jumps transformed the Elan Bank into a microcontinent and dispersed continental fragments in the SKP, and these structures were eventually left behind as India moved northward. The ridge jump that made the Elan Bank a microcontinent occurred after 124 . The development of the Southern Kerguelen Plateau 118–119 contributed to the oceanic anoxic event 1. Around 83.5 sea floor spreading between India and Antarctica was asymmetric in the Kerguelen Plateau region with two-thirds of the sea floor created being added to the Antarctic Plate. A ridge jump eventually transferred parts of the Kerguelen Plateau from the