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Published Online July 24, 2003
Science DOI: 10.1126/science.1086442

Research Articles

Submitted on May 5, 2003
Accepted on July 8, 2003

The Emperor Seamounts: Southward Motion of the Hawaiian Hotspot Plume in Earth's Mantle

John A. Tarduno 1*, Robert A. Duncan 2, David W. Scholl 3, Rory D. Cottrell 1, Bernhard Steinberger 4, Thorvaldur Thordarson 5, Bryan C. Kerr 3, Clive R. Neal 6, Fred A. Frey 7, Masayuki Torii 8, Claire Carvallo 9

1 Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences, University of Rochester, Rochester, NY, USA.
2 College of Oceanic and Atmosphere Science, Oregon State University, Corvallis, OR, USA.
3 Geophysics Department, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA.
4 Institute for Frontier Research on Earth Evolution, Japan Marine Science and Technology Center, Yokosuka, Japan.
5 Department of Geology and Geophysics/SOEST, University of Hawaii, Honolulu, HI, USA.
6 Department of Civil Engineering and Geological Sciences, University of Notre Dame, Notre Dame, IN, USA.
7 Department of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences, MIT, Cambridge, MA, USA.
8 Department of Biosphere-Geosphere System Science, Okayama University of Science, Okayama, Japan.
9 Department of Physics, Geophysics Division, University of Toronto, Mississauga, Canada.

* To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: john{at}earth.rochester.edu.

The Hawaiian-Emperor hotspot track has a prominent bend that has been interpreted to record a change in plate motion traced by the Hawaiian hotspot fixed in the deep mantle. However, paleomagnetic and radiometric age data from samples recovered by ocean drilling define an age-progressive paleolatitude history indicating that the Emperor Seamount trend was principally formed by the rapid (over 40 mm yr -1) motion of the Hawaiian hotspot plume during Late Cretaceous to Early Tertiary times (81-47 Ma). Evidence for motion of the Hawaiian plume affects models of mantle convection and plate tectonics, changing our understanding of terrestrial dynamics.


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