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Science 1 September 2006:
Vol. 313. no. 5791, p. 1197
DOI: 10.1126/science.313.5791.1197f
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This Week in Science

The Hawaiian Islands chain of volcanoes sits within a long line of seamounts stretching 6000 km across the Pacific. The Hawaiian volcanoes had been considered to be produced by the relative motion of the Pacific plate over a southward drifting locus of melting in the mantle. About 3500 kilometers west of Kilauea, there is a sharp bend in the chain. Sharp and Clague (p. 1281; see the Perspective by Stock) inferred a time line for the formation of the Hawaiian-Emperor seamount chain by measuring 40Ar/39Ar ages for eight volcanoes. They give an average age for the bend of about 50 ± 1 Ma, older than previous estimates. The ages, increasing to the north, imply that rates of migration have varied considerably. These results imply the plate motion must have changed at this time, which coincides with the development of subduction zones around the Pacific plate boundary.




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