{"id":391432,"date":"2019-07-31T13:38:50","date_gmt":"2019-07-31T17:38:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/newscenter\/?p=391432"},"modified":"2021-08-12T12:46:46","modified_gmt":"2021-08-12T16:46:46","slug":"researchers-solve-hot-spot-debate-391432","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/newscenter\/researchers-solve-hot-spot-debate-391432\/","title":{"rendered":"Researchers solve ‘hot spot’ debate"},"content":{"rendered":"

Volcanic hot spots such as the ones that created the Hawaiian Islands have long been considered stationary points, created by processes deep within the earth\u2019s interior.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

Using new paleomagnetic data and analyses, researchers John Tarduno<\/a>, a professor of earth and environmental sciences<\/a> at the University of Rochester<\/a>; Richard Bono, a former post-doctoral research associate in Tarduno\u2019s lab and now a post-doctoral researcher at the University of Liverpool; and Hans-Peter Bunge, a geophysicist at Munich University, provide conclusive evidence that hot spots are not fixed but are moving. The research, published in Nature Communications<\/em><\/a>, solves a major debate about the origin of the large-scale structure of the earth\u2019s surface and deep interior.<\/p>\n

What are volcanic hot spots?<\/strong><\/h3>\n

The earth\u2019s lithosphere is the outermost shell of our planet, composed of seven major puzzle pieces known as tectonic plates. While today each of the tectonic plates roughly encompasses one of the seven continents and the Pacific Ocean, scientists believe the pieces once fit together to form supercontinents. Earth\u2019s last supercontinent, Pangea, began to break apart about 175 million years ago. Much of the earth\u2019s seismic activity, including earthquakes and volcanoes, occurs at the boundaries of the tectonic plates.<\/p>\n

But there are other regions on earth characterized by volcanic activity, independent of the plate boundaries. Researchers refer to these areas as hot spots. Hot spots are thought to develop above abnormally hot upwellings of magma in the earth\u2019s mantle called mantle plumes. Although researchers cannot travel to the mantle to observe these processes, they are able to infer hot spots because of the volcanism that develops when the magma pushes through the lithosphere. The most active hot spots include those beneath Yellowstone, the Galapagos Islands, Iceland, and Hawaii.<\/p>\n

Fixed vs. moving volcanic hot spots<\/strong><\/h3>\n

The theory of plate tectonics was widely accepted in the 1960s, but, says Tarduno, \u201cdeciphering the past motion of Earth’s tectonic plates and linking these motions to deeper processes within the earth is an ongoing challenge in the geosciences.\u201d<\/p>\n

For decades after the plate tectonics revolution, researchers thought hot spots were fixed, providing a reference frame to measure the motion of the earth\u2019s plates.<\/p>\n

An iconic illustration of this idea was the 60-degree bend in the chain of islands that make up Hawaii. Researchers believed the Hawaiian Islands were created via an assembly line-like process: an island would form over a hot spot, the motion of the plate would move the island off the hot spot, and the hot spot would remain in place and generate a new island.<\/p>\n

In 2001, Tarduno and his colleagues collected samples of rocks and sediment via scientific ocean drilling in Hawaii\u2019s Emperor Seamounts\u2014undersea, extinct volcanoes in the Pacific Ocean. By studying the magnetism locked in the ancient samples\u2014a field known as paleomagnetism\u2014the researchers determined that the hot spot beneath Hawaii was not fixed but had moved. This painted a picture more consistent with an actively convecting and constantly churning mantle.<\/p>\n

Despite this evidence, however, controversy over the fixity of hot spots continued.<\/p>\n

\"satellite
Satellite composition of the Hawaiian islands (NASA\/Goddard Space Flight Center photo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Large regions of hot spots<\/strong><\/h3>\n

The debate was heightened when researchers recognized that many hot spots were rooted in one of two large regions above the core-mantle boundary: one region under Africa and the other under the Pacific. Research by seismologists indicated these were regions, known as large low-shear-velocity provinces (LLSVPs), where seismic waves travel slowly. The slow speed meant the regions were unusually hot or chemically different from surrounding rock.<\/p>\n

Some scientists believe LLSVPs are relics of plate subduction, where one plate moves downward into the mantle beneath another place, suggesting that LLSVPs are constantly moving. Other scientists believe LLSVPs are stationary and formed from a primordial formation, dating to the earliest processes that shaped the planet.<\/p>\n

The new analyses conducted by Tarduno and his team, including modeling, geochemistry, and paleomagnetism, suggest LLSVPs are in motion, relics of subduction that has been taking place since the breakup of Pangea.<\/p>\n

\u201cLLSVPs are clearly ancient, greater than 100 million years old, but some researchers have claimed they are also fixed and thus can be used as a reference frame for plate motion,\u201d Tarduno says. \u201cThe new analyses suggest that LLSVPs can attract mantle plumes until the LLSVPs and the mantle plumes merge.\u201d<\/p>\n

The researchers also discovered that LLSVPs can undergo large-scale motion comparable in speed to the motion of the tectonic plates. This provides even more evidence that it was the motion of hot spots\u2014and not their fixity\u2014that caused the bend in the Hawaiian Islands.<\/p>\n

\n

Read more<\/strong><\/h3>\n
\n
\"illustration
\nEarth\u2019s inner core is much younger than we thought<\/a>
\nRochester researchers have gathered the first field data that show the Earth\u2019s inner core is only about 565 million years old\u2014relatively young compared to the age of our 4.5-billion-year-old planet.<\/div>\n
\"illustration
\nEarth’s magnetic field fluctuations explained by new data<\/a>
\nUsing new data gathered from sites in southern Africa, researchers have extended their record of Earth\u2019s magnetic field back thousands of years to the first millennium.<\/div>\n
\"student
\nSearching for more insights on Earth\u2019s magnetic field<\/a>
\nGeophysicist John Tarduno has taken a group of students to Africa and Australia this summer to continue his groundbreaking work on the strength and direction of Earth’s magnetic field.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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