A mantle plume is an area under the rocky outer layer of Earth, called the crust, where magma is hotter than surrounding magma. Heat from this extra hot magma causes melting and thinning of the rocky crust, which leads to widespread volcanic activity on Earth's surface above the plume.
What is formed above the mantle plume which is a result of convergence of plates?
Magmas are generated adjacent to convergent and divergent plate boundaries as a direct result of the motion of plates (Wyllie, 1981). Mantle plumes (also called plumes ) are relatively narrow columns of hot mantle that are thought rise from deep within the mantle of the Earth (Wilson, 1963; Morgan, 1972).
What is created over mantle plumes?
Because of the lateral displacement of the tectonic plates at the surface, the mantle plumes can create a series of aligned hot-spot volcanoes . A mid-ocean ridge and a subducted plate are also shown. ... Scientists think that as the Pacific plate slid over a “hot spot,” a line of volcanoes blossomed.
What kind of volcano is made above a mantle plume?
In geology, a hotspot is an area of the Earth's mantle from which hot plumes rise upward, forming volcanoes on the overlying crust. Samoa is composed of a linear chain of volcanic islands situated atop the Pacific tectonic plate.
Where does a mantle plume form?
A mantle plume is posited to exist where super-heated material forms (nucleates) at the core-mantle boundary and rises through the Earth's mantle . Rather than a continuous stream, plumes should be viewed as a series of hot bubbles of material. Reaching the brittle upper Earth's crust they form diapirs.
Is Yellowstone a mantle plume?
The Yellowstone hotspot has long been suspected to be part of a mantle plume —a region of the mantle that is hot but still solid and that is buoyantly upwelling. Mantle plumes may originate from the boundary between Earth's mantle and core, nearly 3000 km (about 1850 mi) beneath the surface.
Do mantle plumes exist?
Some geologists consider that mantle plumes are generated in the lower levels of the asthenosphere by the decay of concentrations of radioactive isotopes. However, many believe that they are generated at much deeper levels in the lower mantle, at the core-mantle boundary, also known as the D” layer.
What is the difference between a magma chamber and a mantle plume?
A mantle plume is a large column of hot rock rising through the mantle. ... Heat transferred from the plume raises the temperature in the lower lithosphere to above melting point, and magma chambers form that feed volcanoes at the surface .
What is the term for a fixed place where there are eruptions above a mantle plume?
A hot spot is an area on Earth over a mantle plume or an area under the rocky outer layer of Earth, called the crust, where magma is hotter than surrounding magma.
What are divergent boundaries?
A divergent boundary occurs when two tectonic plates move away from each other . Along these boundaries, earthquakes are common and magma (molten rock) rises from the Earth's mantle to the surface, solidifying to create new oceanic crust. The Mid-Atlantic Ridge is an example of divergent plate boundaries.
What do you know about mantle?
The mantle is the mostly-solid bulk of Earth's interior . The mantle lies between Earth's dense, super-heated core and its thin outer layer, the crust. The mantle is about 2,900 kilometers (1,802 miles) thick, and makes up a whopping 84% of Earth's total volume. ... Over millions of years, the mantle cooled.
What causes the magma to rise upward in a mantle plume?
What causes magma to rise upward in a mantle plume? A. The magma is less dense than the surrounding material . ... Hot spots are locations on the surface of Earth where a stationary plume of magma erupts at the surface.
Are mantle plumes mostly made of magma or solid rock?
It is not even made of magma. The Earth's mantle is mostly made of solid rock . The misconception of a liquid mantle arises from expressions like “a subducted tectonic plate sinks into the mantle” or “continental drift”, expressions that implicitly refer to the liquid element.
What is mantle plume and how does it work?
A mantle plume is an upwelling of abnormally hot rock within the Earth's mantle . As the heads of mantle plumes can partly melt when they reach shallow depths, they are thought to be the cause of volcanic centers known as hotspots and probably also to have caused flood basalts.
Is the core and mantle a hypothesis?
Earth's mantle and its core mix at a distance of 2900 kilometers under our feet in a mysterious zone . ... This fact has led scientists to formulate the hypothesis, for the last 15 years, of the partial melting of the Earth mantle at the level of this mantle-core border. Today, this hypothesis has been confirmed.
Where is the mantle plume in Hawaii?
The Hawaiian–Emperor volcanic island and seamount chain is usually attributed to a hot mantle plume, located beneath the Pacific lithosphere , that delivers material sourced from deep in the mantle to the surface 1 , 2 , 3 , 4 , 5 .
