Note to users. If you're seeing this message, it means that your browser cannot find this page's style/presentation instructions -- or possibly that you are using a browser that does not support current Web standards. Find out more about why this message is appearing, and what you can do to make your experience of our site the best it can be.

Science 4 December 2009:
Vol. 326. no. 5958, p. 1330
DOI: 10.1126/science.326.5958.1330
Prev | Table of Contents | Next

News of the Week

Mantle Dynamics:

Sea-Floor Study Gives Plumes From the Deep Mantle a Boost

Richard A. Kerr

The great debate about how Earth's interior operates to shed internal heat and shape the surface began with disagreements over whether the upper and lower mantle always remain separate, like oil and water, and ended when seismologists imaged Earth's cold, brittle surface scum, the tectonic plates, and saw some of them diving all the way into the lower mantle. For the past decade, geoscientists have been focusing on the opposite question: whether plumes of hot, buoyant rock from the lower mantle are rising to the surface to fuel volcanic hot spots. On page 1388 of this week's issue of Science, eight researchers weigh in with the most detailed seismic imaging yet beneath the world's most iconic hot spot, the island of Hawaii. The quality of the data and the apparent Hawaiian plume's resemblance to theorists' expectations have won some cautious support for the work.

Read the Full Text

To Advertise     Find Products

Science. ISSN 0036-8075 (print), 1095-9203 (online)