hotspot (geology)

In geology, a hotspot is a location on the Earth's surface that has experienced active vulcanism for a long period of time. J. Tuzo Wilson came up with the idea in 1963 that volcanic chains like the Hawaiian Islands result from the slow movement of a tectonic plate across a "fixed" hot spot deep beneath the surface of the planet. Originally thought to be caused by a narrow stream of hot mantle convecting up from the mantle-core boundary called a mantle plume http://pubs.usgs.gov/publications/text/hotspots.html, the latest geological evidence is pointing to upper-mantle convection as a cause http://www.geotimes.org/nov00/hotspot.html http://www.dur.ac.uk/g.r.foulger/Offprints/Yellowstone.pdf. Geologists have identified some 40-50 such hotspots around the globe, with Hawaii, Runion, Yellowstone, and Iceland overlying the most currently active.

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