Abstract
Ocean islands, seamounts and volcanic ridges are thought to form above mantle plumes. Yet, this mechanism cannot explain many volcanic features on the Pacific Ocean floor1 and some might instead be caused by cracks in the oceanic crust linked to the reorganization of plate motions1,2,3. A distinctive bend in the Hawaiian–Emperor volcanic chain has been linked to changes in the direction of motion of the Pacific Plate4,5, movement of the Hawaiian plume6,7,8, or a combination of both9. However, these links are uncertain because there is no independent record that precisely dates tectonic events that affected the Pacific Plate. Here we analyse the geochemical characteristics of lava samples collected from the Musicians Ridges, lines of volcanic seamounts formed close to the Hawaiian–Emperor bend. We find that the geochemical signature of these lavas is unlike typical ocean island basalts and instead resembles mid-ocean ridge basalts. We infer that the seamounts are unrelated to mantle plume activity and instead formed in an extensional setting, due to deformation of the Pacific Plate. 40Ar/39Ar dating reveals that the Musicians Ridges formed during two time windows that bracket the time of formation of the Hawaiian–Emperor bend, 53–52 and 48–47 million years ago. We conclude that the Hawaiian–Emperor bend was formed by plate–mantle reorganization, potentially triggered by a series of subduction events at the Pacific Plate margins.
This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution
Access options
Subscribe to this journal
Receive 12 print issues and online access
$259.00 per year
only $21.58 per issue
Buy this article
- Purchase on Springer Link
- Instant access to full article PDF
Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Koppers, A. A. P. Mantle plumes persevere. Nature Geosci. 4, 816–817 (2011).
Winterer, E. L. & Sandwell, D. T. Evidence from en échelon cross-grain ridges for tensional cracks in the Pacific Plate. Nature 329, 534–537 (1987).
Natland, J. H. & Winterer, E. L. in Plates, Plumes, and Paradigms Vol. 388 (eds Foulger, G. R., Natland, J. H., Presnall, D. C. & Anderson, D. L.) 687–710 (Geological Society of America Special Paper, Geol. Soc. Am., 2005).
Gordon, R. G., Cox, A. & Harter, C. E. Absolute motion of an individual plate estimated from its ridge and trench boundaries. Nature 274, 752–755 (1978).
Sharp, W. D. & Clague, D. A. 50-Ma Initiation of Hawaiian–Emperor bend records major change in Pacific Plate motion. Science 313, 1281–1284 (2006).
Tarduno, J. A. et al. The Emperor Seamounts: Southward motion of the Hawaiian hotspot plume in Earth’s mantle. Science 301, 1064–1069 (2003).
Steinberger, B., Sutherland, R. & O’Connell, R. J. Prediction of Emperor–Hawaii Seamount locations from a revised model of global plate motion and mantle flow. Nature 430, 167–173 (2004).
Tarduno, J. A. On the motion of Hawaii and other mantle plumes. Chem. Geol. 241, 234–247 (2007).
O’Connor, J. M. et al. Constraints on past plate and mantle motion from new ages for the Hawaiian–Emperor Seamount Chain. Geochem. Geophys. Geosyst. 14, 4564–4584 (2013).
Horner-Johnson, B. C. & Gordon, R. G. True polar wander since 32 Ma B. P.: A paleomagnetic investigation of the skewness of magnetic anomaly 12r on the Pacific Plate. J. Geophys. Res. 115, B09101 (2010).
Whittaker, J. M. et al. Major Australian–Antarctic plate reorganization at Hawaiian–Emperor bend time. Science 318, 83–86 (2007).
Seton, M. et al. Global continental and ocean basin reconstructions since 200 Ma. Earth-Sci. Rev. 113, 212–270 (2012).
Tarduno, J., Bunge, H-P., Sleep, N. & Hansen, U. The bent Hawaiian–Emperor hotspot track: Inheriting the mantle wind. Science 324, 50–53 (2009).
Wessel, P., Harada, Y. & Kroenke, L. W. Toward a self-consistent, high-resolution absolute plate motion model for the Pacific. Geochem. Geophys. Geosyst. 7, Q03L12 (2006).
Kopp, H., Kopp, C., Phipps Morgan, J., Flueh, E. R. & Weinrebe, W. Fossil hot spot-ridge interaction in the Musicians Seamount Province: Geophysical investigations of hot spot volcanism at volcanic elongated ridges. J. Geophys. Res. 108, 2160 (2003).
Pringle, M. S. in The Mesozoic Pacific: Geology Tectonics and Volcanism (eds Pringle, M., Sager, W. & Sliter, W.) 187–215 (Geophysical Monograph Series 77, AGU, 1993).
Royer, J-Y. & Gordon, R. G. The motion and boundary between the Capricorn and Australian plates. Science 277, 1268–1274 (1997).
Sandwell, D. T. et al. Evidence for diffuse extension of the Pacific Plate from Pukapuka Ridges and cross-grain gravity lineations. J. Geophys. Res. 100, 15087–15099 (1995).
Matthews, K. J. et al. Geological and kinematic constraints on Late Cretaceous to mid Eocene plate boundaries in the Southwest Pacific. Earth-Sci. Rev. 140, 72–107 (2015).
Engebretson, D. C., Cox, A. & Gordon, R. G. Relative motions between oceanic plates of the Pacific Basin. J. Geophys. Res. 89, 10291–10310 (1984).
Reagan, M. K. et al. The geology of the southern Mariana fore-arc crust: Implications for the scale of Eocene volcanism in the western Pacific. Earth Planet. Sci. Lett. 380, 41–51 (2013).
Meffre, S. et al. Basalts erupted along the Tongan fore arc during subduction initiation: Evidence from geochronology of dredged rocks from the Tonga fore arc and trench. Geochem. Geophys. Geosyst. 13, Q12003 (2012).
Ishizuka, O. et al. The timescales of subduction initiation and subsequent evolution of an oceanic island arc. Earth Planet. Sci. Lett 306, 229–240 (2011).
Jicha, B. R., Scholl, D. W., Singer, B. S., Yogodzinski, G. M. & Kay, S. M. Revised age of Aleutian Island Arc formation implies high rate of magma production. Geology 34, 661–664 (2006).
Höfig, T. W. et al. in Am. Geophys. Union Fall Meet. 2013 Abstract V21C-2742 (AGU, 2013).
Butterworth, N. P. et al. Pacific Plate slab pull and intraplate deformation in the early Cenozoic. Solid Earth 5, 757–777 (2014).
Forsyth, D. W. & Uyeda, S. On the relative importance of the driving forces of plate motion. Geophys. J. R. Astron. Soc. 43, 163–200 (1975).
Ballmer, M. D., Ito, G., Wolfe, C. J. & Solomon, S. C. Double layering of a thermochemical plume in the upper mantle beneath Hawaii. Earth Planet. Sci. Lett. 376, 155–164 (2013).
Ballmer, M., van Hunen, J., Ito, G., Bianco, T. & Tackley, P. Intraplate volcanism with complex age-distance patterns: A case for small-scale sublithospheric convection. Geochem. Geophys. Geosyst. 10, Q06015 (2009).
Koppers, A. A. P., Staudigel, H., Morgan, J. P. & Duncan, R. A. Nonlinear 40Ar/39Ar age systematics along the Gilbert Ridge and Tokelau Seamount trail and the timing of the Hawaii–Emperor bend. Geochem. Geophys. Geosyst. 8, Q06L13 (2007).
Sandwell, D. T. & Smith, W. H. F. Global marine gravity from retracked Geosat and ERS-1 altimetry: Ridge segmentation versus spreading rate. J. Geophys. Res. 114, B01411 (2009).
Müller, R. D., Dutkiewicz, A., Seton, M. & Gaina, C. Seawater chemistry driven by supercontinent assembly, break-up and dispersal. Geology 41, 907–910 (2013).
Pearce, J. A. Geochemical fingerprinting of oceanic basalts with applications to ophiolite classification and the search for Archean oceanic crust. Lithos 100, 14–48 (2008).
Acknowledgements
F. Jourdan is thanked for very useful comments and suggestions. We thank the captain, crew and members of the scientific party for a successful RV Sonne SO 142 (HULA II) Expedition. W. Lustenhouwer and S. Matveev performed the electron microprobe analyses. Financial support was provided by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF), The Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO) and Australian Research Council grant DP0987713.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Contributions
J.M.O’C., P.S. and J.P.M. conceived the project. J.P.M. and J.M.O’C. wrote the proposal that funded the original seagoing work. J.M.O’C., K.H., F.H. and J.R.W. designed and performed the experiments and data analysis. R.D.M., N.P.B. and D.T.S. provided supporting materials. J.M.O’C., K.H., R.D.M. and J.P.M. wrote the paper. W.J., P.S. and K.H. provided funding essential for carrying out the project.
Corresponding author
Ethics declarations
Competing interests
The authors declare no competing financial interests.
Supplementary information
Supplementary Information
Supplementary Information (PDF 3649 kb)
Supplementary Information
Supplementary Information (ZIP 2422 kb)
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
O’Connor, J., Hoernle, K., Müller, R. et al. Deformation-related volcanism in the Pacific Ocean linked to the Hawaiian–Emperor bend. Nature Geosci 8, 393–397 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1038/ngeo2416
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/ngeo2416
This article is cited by
-
Hawaiian postshield volcanism over the past 55 million years
Contributions to Mineralogy and Petrology (2024)
-
Continental tapering of South America caused asymmetric non-uniform opening of the South Atlantic Ocean
Communications Earth & Environment (2022)
-
The Rotation of the Pacific Plate Induced by the Ontong Java Large Igneous Province
Journal of Earth Science (2022)
-
The Magma Engine and subduction initiation
Acta Geochimica (2019)