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Hawaiian-Emperor seamount chain
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The Hawaiian-Emperor seamount chain is composed of the Hawaiian Ridge, consisting of the islands of the Hawaiian chain northwest to Kure Atoll, and the Emperor Seamounts, a vast underwater mountain region of islands and intervening seamounts, atolls, shallows, banks and reefs along a line trending southeast to northwest beneath the northern Pacific Ocean. The seamount chain, containing over 80 identified undersea volcanoes, stretches over from the Aleutian Trench in the far northwest Pacific to the Lo?ihi seamount, the youngest volcano in the chain, which lies about southeast of the Island of Hawai?i.
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The Hawaiian-Emperor seamount chain is composed of the Hawaiian Ridge, consisting of the islands of the Hawaiian chain northwest to Kure Atoll, and the Emperor Seamounts, a vast underwater mountain region of islands and intervening seamounts, atolls, shallows, banks and reefs along a line trending southeast to northwest beneath the northern Pacific Ocean. The seamount chain, containing over 80 identified undersea volcanoes, stretches over from the Aleutian Trench in the far northwest Pacific to the Lo?ihi seamount, the youngest volcano in the chain, which lies about southeast of the Island of Hawai?i. The Hawaiian Islands are that portion of the Hawaiian-Emperor seamount chain that projects above sea level.
In 1963, geologist John Tuzo Wilson hypothesized the origins of the Hawaiian-Emperor seamount chain, explaining that they were created by a hotspot of volcanic activity that was essentially stationary as the Pacific tectonic plate drifted in a northwesterly direction, leaving a trail of increasingly eroded volcanic islands and seamounts in its wake. An otherwise inexplicable kink in the chain would mark a shift in the movement of the Pacific plate some 47 million years ago, from a northward to a more northwesterly direction, and the kink has been presented in geology texts as an example of how a tectonic plate can shift direction comparatively suddenly. A look at the USGS map on the clearly shows this "spearpoint".
More recent studies, mentioned below, provide evidence that the change in direction may have occurred over a period of about 8 million years. Yet more recently published argon-argon ages of rocks from volcanoes of the southern and central Emperor chain better establish the age at which the bend formed. Sharp and Clague (2006) determined that the bend initiated at about 50 million years ago, and the bending continued until about 42 million years ago. They also concluded that the bend formed from a "traditional" cause—a change in the direction of motion of the Pacific plate.
Recent research shows that the hotspot itself may be moving southward (Tarduno et al., 2003).
Analysis of the magnetization orientation of cooling magnetite in ancient lava flows taken at four seamounts shows a more complex relationship than the textbook stationary hotspot offered. If the hotspot had remained above a fixed mantle plume during the past 80 million years, the latitude as determined by the orientation of the magnetite should be constant for each sample and should also signify original cooling at the same latitude as the current Big Island of Hawaii.
See also
External links
- from the USGS.
- with tables and diagrams illustrating the progressive age of the volcanoes.
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