Reply to the comment by J. Hergt on the paper “Enriched mantle - Dupal signature in the genesis of the Jurassic Ferrar tholeiites from Prince Albert Mountains (Victoria Land, Antarctica)” by Antonini et al. (Contributions to Mineralogy and Petrology 136: 1-19, 1999).

1. The AFC model proposed in the paper by Antonini et al. (1999) explains the whole geochemical variation of Ferrar rocks from Prince Albert Mountains, and was not essentially devoted to reproduce the geo- chemical features of the least evolved investigated sample (LZ11B). 2. The ``primary'' Ferrar basalt reported in Antonini et al. (1999), representative of E-MORB type source, fits the compositional variability of the Dupal type E-MORB. 3. In general the low Ti coupled with the high LREE of the LZ11B sample can be reproduced within 15±20% error by an AFC model (r = 0.3; f = 0.7) involving a "diluted'' Dupal type E-MORB composition and the granulites used in the paper by Antonini et al. (1999). The differences between the calculated and observed P/Nd, La/Nb and Ti/Y may reflect the geochemical variability of Victoria Land granulites. 4. The available data indicate that an E-MORB mantle source coupled with AFC is appropriate to explain the observed low TiO2 and high LREE contents, without involving an N-MORB source contaminated by PAAS, which requires two steps of crustal contamination, the first in the source mantle and the second during magma uprising. 5. A petrogenetic model able to explain all the geo- chemical features of Ferrar rocks has not been ob- tained yet and therefore the origin of crustal signature in the least evolved Ferrar tholeiites is still an open question. However, we have demonstrated that an E-MORB Dupal type mantle source appears ap- propriate to reproduce the Victoria Land's tholeiites whose "crustal signature'' is mainly due to low- pressure contamination through crystalline basement materials.