Bent Hawaiian-Emperor Hotspot Track: Inheriting the Mantle Wind

• Published in: Science (American Association for the Advancement of Science) Vol. 324; no. 5923; pp. 50 - 53
• Main Authors: Tarduno, John, Bunge, Hans-Peter, Sleep, Norm, Hansen, Ulrich
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Washington, DC American Association for the Advancement of Science 03.04.2009; The American Association for the Advancement of Science
• Subjects: Convection; Crystalline rocks; Earth; Earth sciences; Earth, ocean, space; Emperors; Exact sciences and technology; Geophysics; Igneous and metamorphic rocks petrology, volcanic processes, magmas; Internal geophysics; Kinetics; Mantle; Plate tectonics; Plumes; Review; Seamounts; Solid-earth geophysics, tectonophysics, gravimetry; Theory; Upwelling water; Viscosity; Volcanoes; West Pacific; Polynesia; Hawaii; Pacific Ocean; Northwest Pacific; Emperor Seamounts; North Pacific; Oceania; bathymetric maps; plate movement; mid-ocean ridges; plumes; inverse modeling; core-mantle boundary; volcanism; Pacific Plate; lineaments; dynamics; upwelling; interpretation; hot spots; mantle
• ISSN: 0036-8075; 1095-9203
• DOI: 10.1126/science.1161256

Bends in volcanic hotspot lineaments, best represented by the large elbow in the Hawaiian-Emperor chain, were thought to directly record changes in plate motion. Several lines of geophysical inquiry now suggest that a change in the locus of upwelling in the mantle induced by mantle dynamics causes bends in hotspot tracks. Inverse modeling suggests that although deep flow near the core-mantle boundary may have played a role in the Hawaiian-Emperor bend, capture of a plume by a ridge, followed by changes in sub-Pacific mantle flow, can better explain the observations. Thus, hotspot tracks can reveal patterns of past mantle circulation.