SPOTTER - Hotspotting and Backtracking Tools

Deciphering absolute plate motions involves the study of hotspot trails. Traditionally, the backtracking technique is used to rotate seamounts of known age back to their presumed origin (a hotspot). On the other hand, the hotspotting technique uses instead the flowlines associated with the seafloor beneath each volcano to create a grid of Cumulative Volcano Amplitudes (CVA) map given a set of stage pole rotations. Local CVA maxima may be associated with hotspot locations, provided hotspots are not moving. Backtracking and hotspotting are complementary techniques and the SPOTTER package provides tools to investigate both methods:

1. backtracker will calculate forward or backward hotspot tracks or flowlines, or simply just return the final position for each data point.
2. grdrotater will read a bathymetric or gravity grid and a finite rotation and reconstruct the grid to its prior orientation.
3. grdspotter will read a bathymetric or gravity grid and a set of rotations and create a CVA grid in GMT format.
4. hotspotter will read a table of seamounts and a set of rotations and create a CVA grid in GMT format.
5. originator will attempt to associate seamounts with hotspot point sources.
6. rotconverter will manipulate (add, subtract) finite or stage rotations.

SPOTTER has been included in the GMT supplemental archive since version 3.3.1.; the supplement is developed and maintained by Paul Wessel.

Hotspotting References

1. Wessel, P., 2008, Hotspotting: Principles and properties of a plate tectonic Hough transform, Geochem. Geophys. Geosyst., 9(Q08004), doi:10.1029/2008GC002058.
2. Wessel, P. 1999, New Hotspotting tools released, EOS Trans. AGU, 80 (29), p 319.
3. Wessel, P., and L. W. Kroenke, 1997, A geometric technique for relocating hotspots and refining absolute plate motions, Nature, 387, 365-369.
4. Wessel, P., and L. W. Kroenke, 1998, The geometric relationship between hot spots and seamounts: implications for Pacific hot spots, Earth Planet. Sci. Lett., 158, 1-18.
5. Wessel, P., and L. W. Kroenke, 1998, Factors influencing the locations of hot spots determined by the hot-spotting technique, Geophys. Res. Lett., 25, 55-58.
6. Aslanian, D., L. Geli, and J.-L. Olivet, 1998, Hotspotting called into question, Nature, 396, 127.
7. Wessel, P., and L. W. Kroenke, 1998, Hotspotting called into question - Reply, Nature, 396, 127-128.

References to seamount data set

1. Wessel, P., 2001, Global distribution of seamounts inferred from gridded Geosat/ERS-1 altimetry, J. Geophys. Res., 106(B9), 19,431-19,441.
2. Wessel, P., and S. Lyons, 1997, Distribution of large Pacific seamounts from Geosat/ERS-1: Implications for the history of intraplate volcanism, J. Geophys. Res., 102, 22,459-22,475.
3. Wessel, P., 1997, Sizes and ages of seamounts using remote sensing: Implications for intraplate volcanism, Science, 277, 802-805.

Availability of SPOTTER code

Availability of seamount data sets

• Global Seamount table [Wessel, 2001 JGR].
• Pacific Seamount table [Wessel and Lyons, 1997 JGR].

Last update January 6, 2013 by Paul Wessel