Abstract
Although the Galapagos Islands have long been cited as an example of intraplate volcanism resulting from a mantle plume1,2, a number of features of the Galapagos appeared to conflict with a simple mantle-plume model. These include the non-linear arrangement of volcanoes, the non-time-transgressive nature of volcanism, and a tendency for the lavas to have more depleted trace-element and isotopic signatures towards the centre of the archipelago. The toroidal diapir model of Griffiths3,4, in which depleted asthenosphere is drawn into the centre of the rising diapir with the original diapir material preserved in a torus, appears to resolve these conflicts and provides an explanation for many of the enigmatic aspects of Galapagos volcanism.
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Geist, D., White, W. & McBirney, A. Plume-asthenosphere mixing beneath the Galapagos archipelago. Nature 333, 657–660 (1988). https://doi.org/10.1038/333657a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/333657a0
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