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In geology, hotspots (or hot spots) are volcanic locales thought to be fed by underlying mantle that is anomalously hot compared with the surrounding mantle. [1] Examples include the Hawaii , Iceland , and Yellowstone hotspots .
The Yellowstone hotspot is a volcanic hotspot in the United States responsible for large scale volcanism in Idaho, Montana, Nevada, Oregon, and Wyoming, formed as the North American tectonic plate moved over it. It formed the eastern Snake River Plain through a succession of caldera-forming eruptions.
The HawaiĘ»i hotspot is a volcanic hotspot located near the namesake Hawaiian Islands, in the northern Pacific Ocean.One of the best known and intensively studied hotspots in the world, [1] [2] the Hawaii plume is responsible for the creation of the Hawaiian–Emperor seamount chain, a 6,200-kilometer (3,900 mi) mostly undersea volcanic mountain range.
Volcanism away from plate boundaries has been postulated to arise from upwelling diapirs from the core–mantle boundary, 3,000 kilometers (1,900 mi) deep within Earth. This results in hotspot volcanism, of which the Hawaiian hotspot is an example. Volcanoes are usually not created where two tectonic plates slide past one another.
A mantle plume is a proposed mechanism of convection within the Earth's mantle, hypothesized to explain anomalous volcanism. [2] Because the plume head partially melts on reaching shallow depths, a plume is often invoked as the cause of volcanic hotspots, such as Hawaii or Iceland, and large igneous provinces such as the Deccan and Siberian Traps.
The Iceland hotspot is a hotspot that is partly responsible for the high volcanic activity that has formed the Iceland Plateau and the island of Iceland. It contributes to understanding the geological deformation of Iceland .
Intraplate volcanism is volcanism that takes place away from the margins of tectonic plates. Most volcanic activity takes place on plate margins, and there is broad consensus among geologists that this activity is explained well by the theory of plate tectonics. However, the origins of volcanic activity within plates remains controversial.
Where hotspots are developed beneath the continents the products are different, as the mantle-derived magmas cause melting of the continental crust, forming granitic magmas that reach the surface as rhyolites. The Yellowstone hotspot is an example of continental hotspot magmatism, which also displays time-progressive shifts in magmatic activity.