Publication Date:
2009-12-08
Description:
Defining the mantle structure that lies beneath hot spots is important for revealing their depth of origin. Three-dimensional images of shear-wave velocity beneath the Hawaiian Islands, obtained from a network of sea-floor and land seismometers, show an upper-mantle low-velocity anomaly that is elongated in the direction of the island chain and surrounded by a parabola-shaped high-velocity anomaly. Low velocities continue downward to the mantle transition zone between 410 and 660 kilometers depth, a result that is in agreement with prior observations of transition-zone thinning. The inclusion of SKS observations extends the resolution downward to a depth of 1500 kilometers and reveals a several-hundred-kilometer-wide region of low velocities beneath and southeast of Hawaii. These images suggest that the Hawaiian hot spot is the result of an upwelling high-temperature plume from the lower mantle.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Notes: 〈/span〉Wolfe, Cecily J -- Solomon, Sean C -- Laske, Gabi -- Collins, John A -- Detrick, Robert S -- Orcutt, John A -- Bercovici, David -- Hauri, Erik H -- New York, N.Y. -- Science. 2009 Dec 4;326(5958):1388-90. doi: 10.1126/science.1180165.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Author address: 〈/span〉Hawaii Institute of Geophysics and Planetology, University of Hawaii at Manoa, Honolulu, HI 96822, USA. cecily@soest.hawaii.edu〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Record origin:〈/span〉 〈a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19965755" target="_blank"〉PubMed〈/a〉
Print ISSN:
0036-8075
Electronic ISSN:
1095-9203
Topics:
Biology
,
Chemistry and Pharmacology
,
Computer Science
,
Medicine
,
Natural Sciences in General
,
Physics
Permalink