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However, paleomagnetic data show that mantle plumes can also be associated with Large Low Shear Velocity Provinces (LLSVPs) [7] [8] and do move relative to each other. [9] The current mantle plume theory is that material and energy from Earth's interior are exchanged with the surface crust in two distinct and largely independent convective flows:
Mantle convection is the very slow creep of Earth's solid silicate mantle as convection currents carry heat from the interior to the planet's surface. [2] [3] Mantle convection causes tectonic plates to move around the Earth's surface. [4] The Earth's lithosphere rides atop the asthenosphere, and the two form the components of the upper mantle ...
The volcanism often attributed to deep mantle plumes is alternatively explained by passive extension of the crust, permitting magma to leak to the surface: the plate hypothesis. [ 24 ] The convection of the Earth's mantle is a chaotic process (in the sense of fluid dynamics ), which is thought to be an integral part of the motion of plates.
The current mantle plume theory is that material and energy from Earth's interior are exchanged with the surface crust in two distinct modes: the predominant, steady state plate tectonic regime driven by upper mantle convection, and a punctuated, intermittently dominant, mantle overturn regime driven by plume convection. [5]
The convective circulation drives up-wellings and down-wellings in Earth's mantle that are reflected in local surface levels. Hot mantle materials rising up in a plume can spread out radially beneath the tectonic plate causing regions of uplift. [13] These ascending plumes play an important role in LIP formation.
The formation and development of plumes in the early mantle contributed to triggering the lateral movement of crust across the Earth's surface. [18] The effect of upwelling mantle plumes on the lithosphere can be seen today through local depressions around hotspots such as Hawaii. The scale of this impact is much less than that exhibited in the ...
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Subduction slabs drive plate tectonics by pulling along the lithosphere to which they attach in a process known as slab pull and by inducing currents in the mantle via slab suction. [2] The slab affects the convection and evolution of the Earth's mantle due to the insertion of the hydrous oceanic lithosphere. [3]