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On the Seamount T rail: Underwater Volcanoes Hold Keys to Plate Movements and Earth's Mantle Convection
Ancient remnants of volcanoes rise up from the seafloor in the thousandsthere are an estimated 50,000 in the Pacific Ocean alone. These underwater volcanoes, or seamounts, tell us about the past 100-200 million years of our dynamic planet. Continents and the seafloor are part of tectonic plates that move over time. Most earthquakes and volcanic eruptions happen near plate boundaries, where these plates are formed or collide. However, in 1963, J. Tuzo Wilson theorized that volcanic islands distant from plate boundaries form along "hotspots" in the Earth's crust, where plumes of mantle material rise from deep in the Earth until they reach the bottom of the tectonic plates, where they partially melt and erupt on the seafloor. In this theory, as a plate moves over the mantle, the hotspots create a series of volcanic islands and seamounts. Islands farthest from the hotspot are the oldest; those nearest are the youngest. The theory matched the dated ages of the Hawaiian Island-Emperor seamounts. Controversy The Hawaiian model became widely accepted. Twenty years ago, most scientists believed that mantle plume hotspots were fixed spots on the Earth's crust. However, the reality has turned out to be more complex, and researchers are questioning past assumptions. Now, some scientists believe plumes might be moving, while others think there are no mantle plumes at allthat cracks in the oceanic crust can generate enough space for magma to come up and form a volcano. Knowing whether and how mantle plumes move can tell researchers about what is happening deep in the Earth. Seamount ages are key in helping scientists create past plate reconstructions. These reconstructions tell us how plates are moving or where a certain island or seamount was through time. The resulting plate motion models have important implications for other scientists, from geoscientists to biologists looking at biodiversity. Koppers' Research Anthony Koppers, associate professor in marine geology and geophysics, does not count himself as an adherent of one theory or another. For 15 years, he has studied seamounts, including Samoa, the Line Islands, Louisville, and the oldest seamount trails that are located in the West Pacific. He has published several papers that suggest more of a mantle-plume explanation and other papers suggesting more of a cracking-of-the-plate explanation. He finds that seamount trails cannot be understood entirely by applying a single unifying theory. There is a very limited database of good ages for seamounts. Less than 1% of seamounts have been tested. Improvement of analysis techniques means that samples taken more than 10 or 15 years ago are not of the same quality (precision and accuracy) as analyses done today. Within the limited data set, Koppers says that it is possible to see evidence for both the hotspot and cracking hypotheses, and believes that the truth will end up being somewhere in the middle. Line Islands. Koppers has finished dating work on the Line Islands in the southwest Pacific Ocean; these islands are as long and continuous as Hawaii. However, the ages of samples collected from the seamounts show

Anthony Koppers uses argon-argon geochronology to date sam ples tak en from underwater volcanoes.

Research aboard the 2005 cruise to date Sam oan seam ounts. Sam ples tak en from the base of seam ounts underwater were sharply different from rock s sam pled on the island surfaces.

The Louisville seam ount trail. Map from EarthRef.org database.

Research ship at the beginning of the site survey ex pedition of the Louisville

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no systematic age progression, as is the case for Hawaii. The new data suggest that volcanism happened in three distinct episodes, occurring more or less along the entire 4,000 kilometer-long chain of seamounts. Because of that, the Line Islands remain an enigma in understanding these kinds of volcanism. Samoa. Koppers is publishing findings on his work in Samoa. Past age data of samples from the Samoan islands did not fit a simple hot-spot model prediction. However, the rocks that were sampled were taken from the surface of the islands, not from its flanks, which reside as deep as 4-5 kilometers under water. A 2005 research cruise did sample deep under water, at the base of the volcanoes, and measured the ages of those rocks. The results were the same that would be predicted with a mantle plume and the Pacific Plate moving over it. Koppers thinks that the island surface is a veneer of volcanic material formed much later, probably by a different process, for example, a crack related to the subduction of the Pacific Plate in the Tonga Trench that is located only a few hundred kilometers to the south of Samoa. Louisville Seamount Trail. Louisville is a seamount trail south of the Equator between 30 and 40 S and is long and continuous, like Hawaii. Koppers completed a six-week site survey of 25 seamounts to prepare for an IODP (International Ocean Drilling Program) drilling leg at the Louisville seamount trail. The team collected data on the structure of the seamounts to pinpoint appropriate drilling sites. They also dredged for rock samples to be used for 40Ar/39Ar age dating. At Louisville, Koppers wants to repeat an experiment done by Bob Duncan of COAS on an IODP cruise to the Emperor seamounts, part of the Hawaiian trail. When Duncan measured the ages of the rocks and the location of their magnetic North Poles (as locked into the rocks at the time of formation), he discovered a large shift in paleolatitude (position of the hotspot). If the mantle plume was fixed, there would be no such shift, but one would expect that the paleolatitudes measured for each seamount would be similar to the current latitude of the Big Island of Hawaii. From that observation, Duncan concluded that the mantle plume could not be fixed, but is moving around over time. Koppers is planning to also look at the magnetics in the rocks of the Louisville seamounts, to see if that plume is fixed or moving. If the plume is moving, he wants to compare its movement to that of the Hawaiian plume. More information: Anthony Koppers, personal page Noble Gas Mass Spectrometry Lab EarthRef.org Database, seamount catalog. Koppers created the databases over time, through National Science Foundation grants. He has served as webmaster since its inception.
College of Oceanic and Atmospheric Sciences

survey ex pedition of the Louisville seam ount trail, January 2006.

Sam ple from seam ount along the Louisville Ridge.

Heavy seas during som e of the sam pling.

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