{"id":34361,"date":"2017-05-05T09:34:21","date_gmt":"2017-05-05T09:34:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/hawaii-how-the-world-s-biggest-volcanoes-formed\/"},"modified":"2017-05-05T09:34:18","modified_gmt":"2017-05-05T09:34:18","slug":"hawaii-how-the-world-s-biggest-volcanoes-formed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/hawaii-how-the-world-s-biggest-volcanoes-formed\/","title":{"rendered":"Hawaii: How the world’s biggest volcanoes formed"},"content":{"rendered":"

{A study led by The Australian National University (ANU) has solved the 168-year-old mystery of how the world’s biggest and most active volcanoes formed in Hawaii.}<\/p>\n

The study found that the volcanoes formed along twin tracks due to a shift in the Pacific Plate’s direction three million years ago.<\/p>\n

Lead researcher Tim Jones from ANU said scientists had known of the existence of the twin volcanic tracks since 1849, but the cause of them had remained a mystery until now.<\/p>\n

“The discovery helps to better reconstruct Earth’s history and understand part of the world that has captivated people’s imagination,” said Mr Jones, a PhD student from the ANU Research School of Earth Sciences (RSES).<\/p>\n

“The analysis we did on past Pacific Plate motions is the first to reveal that there was a substantial change in motion 3 million years ago. It helps to explain the origin of Hawaii, Earth’s biggest volcanic hotspot and one of the most popular tourist destinations in the world.”<\/p>\n

Twin volcanic tracks exist in other parts of the Pacific, including Samoa, and the study found that these also emerged three million years ago.<\/p>\n

Mr Jones said this kind of volcanic activity was surprising because it occurred away from tectonic plate boundaries, where most volcanoes are found.<\/p>\n

“Heat from the Earth’s core causes hot columns of rock, called mantle plumes, to rise under tectonic plates and produce volcanic activity on the surface,” he said.<\/p>\n

“Mantle plumes have played a role in mass extinctions, the creation of diamonds and the breaking up of continents.”<\/p>\n

Co-researcher Dr Rhodri Davies from RSES said the twin volcanic tracks emerged because the mantle plume was out of alignment with the direction of the plate motion.<\/p>\n

“Our hypothesis predicts that the plate and the plume will realign again at some stage in the future, and the two tracks will merge to form a single track once again,” Dr Davies said.<\/p>\n

“Plate shifts have been occurring constantly, but irregularly, throughout Earth’s history. Looking further back in time we find that double tracks are not unique to young Hawaiian volcanism — indeed, they coincide with other past changes in plate motion.”<\/p>\n

Hawaii sits at the south-eastern limit of a chain of volcanoes and submerged seamounts which get progressively older towards the north west.<\/p>\n

The researchers worked with the National Computational Infrastructure at ANU to model the Pacific Plate’s change in direction and formation of the twin volcanic tracks through Hawaii.<\/p>\n

\"This<\/figure>\n

Source:Science Daily <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

{A study led by The Australian National University (ANU) has solved the 168-year-old mystery of how the world’s biggest and most active volcanoes formed in Hawaii.} The study found that the volcanoes formed along twin tracks due to a shift in the Pacific Plate’s direction three million years ago. Lead researcher Tim Jones from ANU […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[49],"tags":[75],"byline":[160],"hashtag":[],"class_list":["post-34361","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-science-news","tag-homenews","byline-theophile-niyitegeka"],"bylines":[{"id":160,"name":"Th\u00e9ophile Niyitegeka","slug":"theophile-niyitegeka","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":3}],"contributors":[{"id":160,"name":"Th\u00e9ophile Niyitegeka","slug":"theophile-niyitegeka","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":3}],"featured_image":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34361","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=34361"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34361\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34361"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=34361"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=34361"},{"taxonomy":"byline","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/byline?post=34361"},{"taxonomy":"hashtag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtag?post=34361"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}