On the motion of Hawaii and other mantle plumes

The Hawaiian hotspot, and its prominent bend at 47 Ma, have figured prominently in the development of ideas on the nature of mantle plumes and plate motion. Here I review paleomagnetic analyses associated with Ocean Drilling Program (ODP Leg 197) which, together with studies of plate circuits and geodynamic modeling results, indicate southward motion of the Hawaiian hotspot during formation of the Emperor Seamounts. These analyses confirm the long-posited idea that mantle plumes should be influenced by mantle flow. Moreover, these results indicate that Late Cretaceous–Early Paleogene hotspot motion was the dominant factor in forming the Emperor track and thus the famous bend morphology. An important corollary of this finding on hotspot motion is that long-term polar wander of Earth, which has been inaccurately assessed by viewing paleomagnetic data in a fixed hotspot reference frame, has been far less than previously thought. Salient points for future research raised by the ODP Leg 197 paleomagnetic results include the scale of mantle flow recorded by hotspot track segments and the underlying processes that cause track segments to be dominated by mantle flow rather than plate motion for given time intervals.