«This unique set of mixing relationships requires a specific geometry for the four geochemical flavors within
the upwelling plume: They must be hosted within a matrix that is composed of the rare fifth component with high He - 3,» Jackson explained.
«We found ourselves looking at the hot,
upwelling plume that created the Hawaiian Islands.»
The hot spot —
an upwelling plume of hot mantle — beneath the Yellowstone Plateau caused massive and sudden eruptions 2.0 million, 1.3 million, and 0.6 million years ago — near «clockwork timing,» according to geochemist Ilya Bindeman, the lead researcher of a team at the University of Wisconsin, Madison.
«This global pattern of finger - like structures that we're seeing, which has not been documented before, appears to reflect interactions between
the upwelling plumes and the motion of the overlying plates,» Lekic said.
Not exact matches
Scientists studying volcanic hotspots have strong evidence of this, finding high helium - 3 relative to helium - 4 in some
plumes, the
upwellings from Earth's deep mantle.
Earth scientists have long suspected that
upwellings in these mantle convection currents would manifest themselves as the
plumes responsible for Earth's volcanic hot spots.
«They would tell you probably where you have
plumes and
upwellings.»
According to a group of current and former researchers at Arizona State University, the key to unlocking this complex, geochemical puzzle rests in a model of mantle dynamics consisting of
plumes —
upwelling's of abnormally hot rock within Earth's mantle — that originate in the lower mantle and physically interact with chemically distinct piles of material.
A group of former and current Arizona State University researchers say chemical differences found between rocks samples at volcanic hotspots around the world can be explained by a model of mantle dynamics that involves
plumes,
upwellings of abnormally hot rock within the Earth's mantle, that originate in the lower mantle and physically interact with chemically distinct piles of material.
But if there are no mantle
plumes, then all of that mixing must have happened within the
upwellings and nearby mantle in Earth's top 1,000 kilometers.
«Our goal was to figure out how we could use this distribution of volcano compositions at the surface to reverse - engineer how these components are distributed inside this
upwelling mantle
plume at depth,» Jackson said.
«This new constraint on
plume structure has important implications for how deep mantle material is entrained in
plumes, and it gives us the clearest picture yet for the chemical structure of an
upwelling mantle
plume.»