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The Emperor Seamounts: Southward Motion of the Hawaiian Hotspot Plume in Earth's Mantle
John A. Tarduno,1*Robert A. Duncan,2David W. Scholl,3Rory D. Cottrell,1Bernhard Steinberger,4Thorvaldur Thordarson,5Bryan C. Kerr,3Clive R. Neal,6Fred A. Frey,7Masayuki Torii,8Claire Carvallo9
The Hawaiian-Emperor hotspot track has a prominent bend, whichhas served as the basis for the theory that the Hawaiian hotspot,fixed in the deep mantle, traced a change in plate motion. However,paleomagnetic and radiometric age data from samples recoveredby ocean drilling define an age-progressive paleolatitude history,indicating that the Emperor Seamount trend was principally formedby the rapid motion (over 40 millimeters per year) of the Hawaiianhotspot plume during Late Cretaceous to early-Tertiary times(81 to 47 million years ago). Evidence for motion of the Hawaiianplume affects models of mantle convection and plate tectonics,changing our understanding of terrestrial dynamics.
1 Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences, University of Rochester, Rochester, NY 14627, USA. 2 College of Oceanic and Atmosphere Science, Oregon State University, Corvallis, OR 97331–5503, USA. 3 Geophysics Department, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305, USA. 4 Institute for Frontier Research on Earth Evolution, Japan Marine Science and Technology Center, Yokosuka 237–0061, Japan. 5 Department of Geology and Geophysics–School of Ocean and Earth Science and Technology, University of Hawaii, Honolulu, HI 96822, USA. 6 Department of Civil Engineering and Geological Sciences, University of Notre Dame, Notre Dame, IN 46556, USA. 7 Department of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA. 8 Department of Biosphere-Geosphere System Science, Okayama University of Science, Okayama 700–0005, Japan. 9 Department of Physics, Geophysics Division, University of Toronto, Mississauga, ON L5L1C6 Canada.
* To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: john{at}earth.rochester.edu
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