Double layering of a thermochemical plume in the upper mantle beneath Hawaii

Authors: Maxim D. Ballmer1*, Garrett Ito1, Cecily J. Wolfe2,3, and Sean C. Solomon3,4

1Department of Geology and Geophysics, School of Ocean and Earth Sciences and Technology, University of Hawaii at Manoa, Honolulu, HI 96822, USA

2Hawaii Institute of Geophysics and Planetology, School of Ocean and Earth Sciences and Technology, University of Hawaii at Manoa, Honolulu, HI 96822, USA

3Department of Terrestrial Magnetism, Carnegie Institution of Washington, Washington, DC 20015, USA

4Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, Columbia University, Palisades, NY 10964, USA

*Correspondence to: ballmer@hawaii.edu

 

Abstract

According to classical plume theory, purely thermal upwellings rise through the mantle, pond in a thin layer beneath the lithosphere, and generate hotspot volcanism. Neglected by this theory, however, are the dynamical effects of compositional heterogeneity carried by mantle plumes even though this heterogeneity has been commonly identified in sources of hotspot magmas. Numerical models predict that a hot, compositionally heterogeneous mantle plume containing a denser eclogite component tends to pool at ~300–410 km depth before rising to feed a shallower sublithospheric layer. This double-layered structure of a thermochemical plume is more consistent with seismic tomographic images at Hawaii than the classical plume model. The thermochemical structure as well as time dependence of plume material rising out of the deeper into the shallower layer can further account for long-term fluctuations in volcanic activity and asymmetry in bathymetry, seismic structure, and magma chemistry across the hotspot track, as are observed.

 

 

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pancake

 

 

deep eclogitic pool