Mid-oceanic islands can remain volcanically active for millions of years
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Peer-reviewed literature demonstrates that ocean island hot spots and seamount provinces can remain volcanically active and persist over millions of years.
The Canary Island Seamount Province forms a scattered hotspot track on the Atlantic ocean floor ~1300 km long and ~350 km wide, perpendicular to lithospheric fractures, and parallel to the NW African continental margin. New (40)Ar/(39)Ar datings show that seamount ages vary from 133 Ma to 0.2 Ma in the central archipelago, and from 142 Ma to 91 Ma in the southwest. Combining (40)Ar/(39)Ar ages with plate tectonic reconstructions, I find that the temporal and spatial distribution of seamounts is irreconcilable with a deep fixed mantle plume origin, or derivation from passive mantle upwelling beneath a mid-ocean ridge. I conclude that shallow mantle upwelling beneath the Atlantic Ocean basin off the NW African continental lithosphere flanks produced recurrent melting anomalies and seamounts from the Late Jurassic to Recent, nominating the Canary Island Seamount Province as oldest hotspot track in the Atlantic Ocean, and most long-lived preserved on earth.
In a world without moving ice or running water (such as the Moon or Mercury), mountains remain smooth and dull. Volcanoes mark locations where lava rises to the surface. One example is mid ocean ridges, which are long undersea mountain ranges formed by lava rising from Earth’s mantle at plate boundaries. A second major kind of volcanic activity is associated with subduction zones, and volcanoes sometimes also appear in regions where continental plates are colliding. In each case, the volcanic activity gives us a way to sample some of the material from deeper within our planet. Other volcanic activity occurs above mantle “hot spots”—areas far from plate boundaries where heat is nevertheless rising from the interior of Earth. One of the best-known hot spots is under the island of Hawaii, where it currently supplies the heat to maintain three active volcanoes, two on land and one under the ocean. The Hawaii hot spot has been active for at least 100 million years. As Earth’s plates have moved during that time, the hot spot has generated a 3500-kilometer-long chain of volcanic islands.
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