20
votes
Accepted
What are some of the strongest theories against the existence of mantle plumes?
The best argument I've heard supporting strong skepticism of plumes, if not total dismissal, is that the theory is too flexible. To put it more bluntly, this amounts to saying that it is unfalsifiable ...
- 10.7k
13
votes
Is the Mauna Loa CO$_\mathsf{2}$ record affected by the nearby mantle plume?
How is ist possible that Mauna Loa Observatory is the International Reference Observatory for CO2 Global Meassurments
I don’t know that it is ‘the International Reference Observatory’. The Mauna Loa ...
- 5,380
10
votes
Accepted
Are mantle plumes distributed around the core randomly or in a known pattern?
First of all, the idea of a fixed "hotspot" reference frame is (albeit reluctantly) falling out of favour on a geological timescale; see e.g. http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/GM121p0339/...
- 2,826
9
votes
Accepted
How do mantle plumes travel from the core of Earth to the crust?
The high values obtained when estimating the Rayleigh number for the mantle indicates that convection there is vigorous, and that convection is responsible for almost all the heat transported from the ...
- 3,780
8
votes
Is Iceland an example of a hot-spot overlying a mantle plume?
Yes, Iceland is an example of a hotspot overlying a plume. The plume has been imaged seismically, e.g., see the Science paper (Figure 3) by Montelli et al. (2004). It is available at http://www....
- 2,361
5
votes
What are some of the strongest theories against the existence of mantle plumes?
As mentioned, the theory is so vague that it's impossible to falsify nor support it with present methods and data. Geologists can learn something about the limitation of tomographic models in this ...
- 5,896
5
votes
How can linear oceanic ridges (like the East Pacific Rise) be explained by single point mantle plumes?
Hot spots and ridges are two different things.
Hot spots stay in one place while the earth crust above them drifts and thus create a line of dormant volcanoes, they are a point features so to say.
...
- 776
2
votes
How can linear oceanic ridges (like the East Pacific Rise) be explained by single point mantle plumes?
hot spots help/control how spreading centers form but they are not what keeps them going.
If you push on a thin amorphous material perpendicular to the surface they tend to crack/split at three ...
- 6,464
2
votes
Accepted
Effect of reducing conditions on melting point
As you probably know, the melting temperature in the mantle is a function of H2O contents. The more H2O you have, the lower the melting point of the rocks (i.e. dry vs wet solidus in the sketch). A ...
- 22.2k
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