How strongly do plumes influence Pacific seamount distribution?

Zhao, Yanghui; Riel, Bryan; Foulger, Gillian; Ding, Weiwei

Abstract

Seamounts are submarine volcanoes postulated to be formed either by hot mantle plumes rising from the deep mantle or by shallow, plate-related processes. However, the relative importance of these two mechanisms has not hitherto been quantified. In this study, applying Gaussian Process regression to reconstruct irregular seamount topography above and under the sedimentary layer, we calculate an accurate map of volcanism distribution within the Pacific plate. We find that previous erupted volumes have been underestimated by 75% on average. Our results show that (1) the total erupted volume postulated to be plume-related makes up only 18% of total Pacific intraplate volcanism, and (2) the volume statistics for plume-related seamounts and those along the Large Low-Shear-Velocity Province margins are nearly indistinguishable from the rest of the intraplate seamounts. We conclude that proposed plumes account for only a minority of the volume of intraplate volcanism in the Pacific plate, implying that shallow rather than deep processes are dominant.

Citation

Zhao, Y., Riel, B., Foulger, G., & Ding, W. (2022). How strongly do plumes influence Pacific seamount distribution?. Earth and Planetary Science Letters, 595, Article 117786. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.epsl.2022.117786

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Aug 17, 2022
• Online Publication Date: Aug 29, 2022
• Publication Date: 2022
• Deposit Date: Sep 13, 2022
• Publicly Available Date: Sep 13, 2022
• Journal: Earth and Planetary Science Letters
• Print ISSN: 0012-821X
• Electronic ISSN: 1385-013X
• Publisher: Elsevier
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 595
• Article Number: 117786
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.epsl.2022.117786
• Public URL: https://durham-repository.worktribe.com/output/1194603