Earth’s tectonic plates driven by hot magma?

Tectonic plates and hot magma

Scientists have known for decades that the ongoing pull and push movements of tectonic plates are responsible for sculpting continental features around the planet. Volcanoes, for example, are generally located at areas where plates are moving apart or coming together. Scripps scientists Steve Cande and Dave Stegman have now discovered a new force that drives plate tectonics: plumes of hot magma pushing up from Earth’s deep interior. Their research is published in the July 7, 2011 issue of the journal Nature.

Using analytical methods to track plate motions through Earth’s history, Cande and Stegman’s research provides evidence that such mantle plume “hot spots,” which can last for tens of millions of years and are active today at locations such as Hawaii, Iceland and the Galapagos, may work as an additional tectonic driver, along with push-pull forces.

Their new results describe a clear connection between the arrival of a powerful mantle plume head around 70 million years ago and the rapid motion of the Indian plate that was pushed as a consequence of overlying the plume’s location. The arrival of the plume also created immense formations of volcanic rock now called the Deccan flood basalts in western India, which erupted just prior to the mass extinction of dinosaurs. The Indian continent has since drifted north and collided with Asia, but the original location of the plume’s arrival has remained volcanically active to this day, most recently having formed Réunion island near Madagascar.

The team also recognized that this “plume-push” force acted on other tectonic plates, and pushed on Africa, as well, but in the opposite direction.

Stegman, an assistant professor of geophysics in Scripps’ Cecil H. and Ida M. Green Institute of Geophysics and Planetary Physics, said:

Prior to the plume’s arrival, the African plate was slowly drifting but then [stopped] altogether, at the same time the Indian [sped] up. It became clear the motion of the Indian and African plates [was] synchronized, and the Réunion hotspot was the common link.

After the force of the plume had waned, the African plate’s motion gradually returned to its previous speed while India slowed down.

Cande, a professor of marine geophysics in the Geosciences Research Division at Scripps, said:

There is a dramatic slow down in the northwards motion of the Indian plate around 50 million years ago that has long been attributed to the initial collision of India with the Eurasian plate. An implication of our study is that the slow down might just reflect the waning of the mantle plume—the actual collision might have occurred a little later.

Summary: Scripps scientists Steve Cande and Dave Stegman have discovered a new force that is likely a driver of plate tectonics: plumes of hot magma pushing up from Earth’s deep interior. Their research is published in the July 7, 2011 issue of the journal Nature.

Via Scripps Institution of Oceanography

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