Tag Archives: mantle plume

A new recipe for Large Igneous Provinces: just add BIF, then wait a couple of hundred million years

Posted on May 26, 2023 by Chris Rowan

Here’s a new paper that proposes the biggest of big ideas: a 240 million year causal chain that runs from the Earth’s surface, to the core mantle boundary, and back again! Here’s how it supposedly goes: 1. Banded iron deposits … Continue reading →

Categories: deep time, geology, past worlds, volcanoes

Hotspot volcanism on Hawaii: textbook vs reality

Posted on July 12, 2012 by Chris Rowan

Just like an iceberg, the parts of the Hawaiian Islands that you see above the ocean surface are dwarfed in volume by the stuff below the waves. For a start, any volcano that forms in the middle of the Pacific … Continue reading →

Categories: geology, outcrops, photos, tectonics, volcanoes

Yellowstone: what lies beneath

Posted on August 26, 2010 by Chris Rowan

The best evidence yet that the Yellowstone hotspot is the result of a mantle plume – one that had to burn through a subducting slab to get to the surface. Continue reading →

Categories: geophysics, paper reviews, volcanoes