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 Geological Society of America
Special Paper 388
2005

Scoring hotspots: The plume and plate paradigms

Don L. Anderson*
California Institute of Technology, Seismological Laboratory 252-21, Pasadena, California 91125, USA

We see that many assumptions used in previous hypotheses can be discarded as unnecessary . . . there
is no need to locate the source of plumes in the lower mantle.
—Richter and Parsons (1975)

ABSTRACT

The origin of midplate and along-ridge melting anomalies is controversial. Hy-

potheses involve, at one extreme, concentrated hot mantle upwellings from the deep-
est mantle and, at the other extreme, shallow processes dominated by stress, plate
tectonics, and fertility variations, along with an asthenosphere that is near the melt-
ing point. An updated hotspot list is presented and is tested against criteria relevant
to both the deep thermal plume and the shallow (plate and asthenosphere) hypothe-
ses. The unique polling approach of Courtillot et al. (2003) is applied to the plume
hypothesis and to other hypotheses for melting anomalies. Although some “primary”
(i.e., potentially deep-seated) hotspots (Iceland, Hawaii, Easter, Louisville, Afar, Ré-
union, and Tristan) score well using the chosen subjective plume criteria, they score
poorly using criteria more appropriate to deep or thermal processes, such as magma
temperature, heatflow, transition zone thickness, and high-resolution upper and lower
mantle seismic tomographic results. In particular, Iceland, Easter, Afar, Tristan, and
Yellowstone have not been confirmed by tomography. They are shallow features with
well-defined plate tectonic explanations. For most melting anomalies (aka “hotspots”)
the plume hypothesis scores poorly against competing hypotheses such as stress- and
crack-controlled magmatism, mechanisms that are associated with plate tectonics.
Based on the results, most “hotspots,” including proposed “primary” or plume-
candidate hotspots, are unlikely to be caused by thermal plumes from deep thermal
boundary layers. Melting anomalies, on- or off-ridge, appear to be a natural result of
nonrigid plate tectonics, including recycling, and do not require an extraordinary ex-
planation, such as narrow thermal instabilities that traverse the whole mantle. Thus
plate tectonics, plate boundaries, global plate reorganization, normal magmatism,
melting anomalies, volcanic chains, and mantle geochemistry can be unified into a
single theory.

Keywords: plumes, mantle convection, volcanism, plate tectonics, hotspots

*E-mail: dla@gps.caltech.edu.

Anderson, D.L., 2005, Scoring hotspots: The plume and plate paradigms, in Foulger, G.R., Natland, J.H., Presnall, D.C., and Anderson, D.L., eds., Plates, plumes,
and paradigms: Geological Society of America Special Paper 388, p. 31–54, doi: 10.1130/2005.2388(04). For permission to copy, contact editing@geosociety.org.
© 2005 Geological Society of America.

31
32 D.L. Anderson
INTRODUCTION
Plate tectonic theory accounts for most global volcanism,
but it has been widely perceived that a subset of volcanoes does
not have a plate tectonic explanation. Hypotheses for the gene-
sis of ocean island basalts (OIB) and magmatically productive
regions along mid-ocean ridges can be divided into those in-
volving partial melting of hot plumes that have risen from a deep
reservoir into a homogeneous and much colder “background”
mantle (Morgan, 1971, 1972a,b; Campbell and Griffiths, 1990;
Sleep, 1990,1992; Griffiths and Campbell, 1991; Hill et al., 1992),
and those invoking shallow and tectonic processes (see Appen-
dix 2). Only seven hotspots meet criteria that are assumed to in-
dicate a very deep (up to at least 500 km depth) origin (Courtillot
et al., 2003). Evidence is accumulating that some, if not most,
“hotspots” may not be hot (Klein and Langmuir,1987; Anderson,
2000c; Green et al., 2001; Presnall et al., 2002; Stein and Stein,
2002; Asimow and Langmuir, 2003; Presnall and Gudfinnsson,
this volume), that melting of the mantle might be easier (require
a lower temperature) than generally thought, and that melting
anomalies may involve material that is more fertile, volatile-rich,
and easily melted than mantle elsewhere (Sleep, 1984; Reisberg
and Zindler, 1986; Natland, 1989; Korenaga and Kelemen, 2000;
Meibom and Anderson, 2003; Meibom et al., 2003).
Localization of volcanism appears to be controlled by
lithospheric architecture, stress, and fabric rather than by con-
centrated hot jets (Jackson and Shaw, 1975; Jackson et al., 1975;
Sykes, 1978; King and Anderson, 1995, 1998; Favela and Ander-
son, 1999; Hieronymus and Bercovici, 1999; Anderson, 2001b,
2002a,b,c,d; see also www.mantleplumes.org/cracks&stress.
html). It is therefore necessary to reevaluate the evidence that
has been used to support the thermal plume hypothesis. Alter-
native and nonthermal models are being developed (Appen-
dix 2), and it would be useful if these could be evaluated, in a
systematic way, side by side with the plume model. Recently
Courtillot et al. (2003) proposed a method by which this can be
accomplished.
It is generally agreed that most melting anomalies and mid-
plate volcanism are not due to deep mantle plumes (Appendix 2).
The challenge is to develop criteria for identifying those that
may have a deep origin. The purpose of the present study is to
evaluate and test the hotspot and plume-candidate lists of recent
authors (Sleep, 1990; Phipps Morgan, 1997; Malamud and Tur-
cotte, 1999; Courtillot et al., 2003; Ritsema and Allen, 2003) and,
for completeness, to perform a similar analysis of hypotheses
that concentrate on properties of the lithosphere and the as-
thenosphere in controlling locations of midplate volcanoes,
large igneous provinces, and volcanic chains (e.g., Natland and
Turner, 1985; Anderson et al., 1992a,b; Anderson, 1995; Mc-
Nutt et al., 1997; Dickinson, 1998; King and Anderson, 1998;
Favela and Anderson, 1999; King and Ritsema, 2000; McNutt
and Bonneville, 2000; Tanton and Hager, 2000; Natland and
Winterer, this volume) and on a heterogeneous and variably
fertile mantle (Zartman and Doe, 1981; Natland, 1989; Weaver,
1991; Niu et al., 2002; Salters and Dick, 2002; Meibom and An-
derson, 2004) that is created and maintained by plate tectonics
rather than by large semi-isolated reservoirs in the deep mantle.
BACKGROUND
J. Tuzo Wilson (1963) and others were impressed by the
seeming age progression of some volcanic chains. The few for
which a robust age progression could be defined were called
“hotspot tracks.” A volcanic chain can develop due to litho-
spheric processes or fluid dynamic processes in the underlying
mantle. Many hotspots appeared to move little with respect to
each other. This appeared to rule out shallow mechanisms such
as propagating cracks. It was but a small step to propose that
hotspots were stationary with respect to the underlying mantle
and defined a fixed reference frame. If this was true, “hotspot
tracks” would describe the motion of the plate over the deep
mantle. Plate rigidity and stationary, high-temperature melting
points were the key elements of the theory.
A thermal boundary layer at the base of a convecting fluid,
heated from below, is the source of the high temperature and the
material that are the essence of the plume hypothesis. At most,
the lithosphere, or the surface boundary layer, is viewed as a
secondary or tertiary influence (e.g., Courtillot et al., 2003). In
a fluid heated from below, convection originates by the growth
of statistical fluctuations in a thermal boundary layer. These in-
stabilities are called “thermal plumes,” “jets,” or “thermals.” In
the geodynamics and geochemical literature a mantle plume
differs from ordinary convection, dikes, passive upwelling—and
other plate tectonic processes—in the following ways: a plume
is a hot, narrow, active upwelling that starts as an instability in
a hot boundary layer. This will serve as my definition of a plume.
A geophysical plume has three elements: it must start in a thermal
boundary layer (rather than being a random fluctuation in temper-
ature or composition, a passive upwelling, or an internally gen-
erated upwelling due perhaps to melting), it must have a bulbous
head (assuming the deep thermal boundary layer is hot and low-
viscosity), and it must have a trailing narrow tail. In addition,
Morgan (1971, 1972b) believed that mantle plumes must involve
large mass transport and heatflow in order for them to reach the
surface, maintain the asthenosphere, and influence ridges to the
extent that they were assumed to. This large and concentrated
upward flux is balanced by a diffuse broad downwelling.
Fluid dynamic and lithospheric alternatives to Morgan’s
narrowly focused upwellings include plate-scale and small-scale
convection, corner flow, variations in melting point and other
physical properties, dikes, spontaneous melting instabilities,
underplating, passive upwellings, cracks, incipient plate bound-
aries, and reactivation of tectonic features. A heat pipe mecha-
nism may operate at midplate locations, and on single-plate or
stagnant-lid planets, without plate tectonics. A partially molten
interior creates buoyant pockets that can fracture their way to
the surface and push the volcanic pile deeper, where it remelts.
Heat pipes (and dikes) are not plumes because they originate at
 Scoring hotspots: The plume and plate paradigms
the top, not the bottom, of a buoyant region and represent a dif-
ferent kind of instability. Stofan and Smrekar (this volume) argue
that Venus has plumes, but they define a plume as any “rising
anomaly from depth” and argue that any volcanism on a planet
without plate tectonics must be due to “plumes.” This definition
of a plume, although technically accurate from a fluid dynamic
point of view, would encompass upwellings—passive or active—
at oceanic ridges and island arcs, kimberlites, mountain belts,
salt domes and dikes, and normal large-scale convection. It is not
a useful definition. Stress and thickness variations in the outer
shell also localize volcanism; neither plumes nor terrestrial-
style plate tectonics are necessary for volcanism to exist.
Most volcanism is the result of passive upwelling (mid-
ocean ridges), flux-induced melting and corner flow (island arcs),
rifting (or extension), or dike injection (magma fracture) from
the shallow mantle. These are not plumes in the sense used in
the geodynamic and geochemical communities. Melting is en-
hanced by adiabatic expansion during ascent. “Hotspots” define
a class of volcanoes that has been attributed to localized high
temperature rather than to the plate tectonic, passive upwelling,
and athermal processes just described. Few of the features that
have been called hotspots or hotspot tracks have characteristics
expected of thermal plumes (Appendix 2). Because “normal”
mantle convection and plate tectonic processes (such as recy-
cling, insulation, cracking, diking, and secondary shear-induced
convection) give variations in temperature, melting points, and
magma volumes, the definition of what constitutes a plume-
related “melting anomaly” is arbitrary. Methods such as vote
counting, opinion polls, meta-analysis, and multiproxy statistics
are often used for risk assessment, and in the social and medical
sciences, in making decisions. These techniques are not often
used in the physical sciences, except for climatology and earth-
quake prediction. Courtillot et al. (2003) introduced these in-
teresting techniques into the plume debate. The power of this
approach depends on judgment in choosing and evaluating cri-
teria, and in setting up the rules in advance. Although the origi-
nal criteria (fixity, age progressions, high temperature, elevated
heatflow, lithospheric thinning, and continental uplift), which
were thought to characterize features caused by deep mantle
thermal plumes, are no longer considered essential, combinations
of different criteria and polling methods have been proposed for
this purpose.
Courtillot et al. (2003), hereafter CDBS, examined the prop-
erties of forty-nine hotspots and considered seven of these “pri-
mary.” The proposed “primary” hotspots, which they attribute
to deep mantle plumes, are Hawaii, Louisville, Réunion, Easter
Island, Iceland, Afar, and Tristan. The others, according to the
rules assigned by the authors, “lack evidence for a deep origin.”
CDBS list the following as their primary criteria for plumes
from the deep mantle:
1. long-lived volcanic chains (called “tracks” in the plume
hypothesis), whether or not they have monotonic age
progressions
33
2. large igneous provinces at one end (called “plume heads”
or “initiation points”)
3. high buoyancy flux (BF) (>–1 mg/sec)
4. “high” 3He/4He ratios (“consistently” >10 times the atmo-
spheric ratio, Ra) or high 20Ne/22Ne ratios
5. “low” (in the lower quartile) seismic shear wave velocity at
500 km depth
For polling purposes, these criteria were posed as five ques-
tions: Is the hotspot part of a chain? Is there a large igneous
province at one end? Is the BF >1 mg/sec? Is the 3He/4He ratio
“consistently” >10 times the atmospheric ratio, Ra? Is the shear
wave velocity at 500 km in the lower quartile of the velocities
at that depth? The polling is accomplished by consulting the lit-
erature. CDBS presume that a hotspot satisfying three or more
of these criteria (three or more “Yes” answers) may represent a
deep mantle plume. They stress that any single criterion is not a
sufficient diagnosis in itself. These, and other, criteria are given
in Table 1.
By these rules, high 3He/4He ratios do not unambiguously
identify deep mantle plumes. Twice as many “high-He” hotspots
are judged to be questionable or shallow as are deemed to be
primary or deep plumes. The inferred strength (BF) also is not
a unique diagnostic because four out of the six strongest melting
anomalies are not on the primary plume-candidate list, and sev-
eral hotspots with no swells or very low BF are considered pri-
mary. Of the six tomographic features that Montelli et al. (2004)
attributed to deep mantle plumes, using P-wave arrival times,
only Easter Island is considered a deep plume-candidate by
CDBS. The multiple-criteria method of CDBS is potentially
more valuable than the single-criterion diagnostic used by spe-
cialists. For example, high 3He/4He ratios (e.g., Graham, 2002),
low seismic velocity (Nataf, 2000), low P-wave velocity (Mon-
telli et al., 2004), and age progressions (e.g., Koppers et al.,
2001) have often been used individually, with no other evidence,
to declare that a plume has been found. Few proposed plumes
have more than two of the attributes that were originally thought
to constitute evidence for a hot thermal from a deep boundary
layer (fixity, age progressions, high temperature, elevated heat
flow, lithospheric thinning, and continental uplift). In fact, these
criteria were not even used by CDBS. Their definition of a plume
is encapsulated in the criteria they use, which define something
different from Wilson-Morgan plumes. Some of these criteria
would apply to embedded chemical inhomogeneities or propa-
gating cracks. A major shortcoming of CDBS is that hypotheses
other than the plume hypothesis, amended as it is, were not con-
sidered or evaluated.
Table 1 lists some sixty hotspots along with various attri-
butes and their CDBS plume scores. (A more complete list of
volcanic centers, including their locations and alternate names,
is given in Appendix 1.) Sources of data for the various columns
are given in the text. The column labeled “Issues” indicates that
special tectonic and geological studies have been performed or
that the feature is related to a transform fault, fracture zone,
 TABLE 1. HOTSPOT LIST AND PARAMETERS
Plume scores
BF CDBS Revised 3He/4He

Mg/s [Max = 5] [Max = 12] Geoid Fixity R/Ra He/

Location [1] [2] [3] m. Issues* [4] [5] [3He]§ Ne
Largest
Afar 1.2 4 6? Average
Easter 3.3? 4+? 4 0 No swell Not fixed Normal
Hawaii (<5 Ma) 6.5 4+? 4? 5 Heat flow High Low
Iceland 1.2 4+? 8? Several Not fixed High Low
Louisville 2? 3+? 3? No swell Not fixed
Réunion 1.4? 4 1? 2.6 * Moderate Low
Tristan 1? 3 1? * Low Low
Marquesas 3.3? 2+? 3? 2.2 Trend* Not fixed Low
Samoa 1.6? 4 4? No swell* Not fixed High Low
Galapagos 1.4? 2+? 2? 0.4 No swell High

Others
Amsterdam 0 No swell Low
Ascencion .9? 0 1 0.4 No swell
Azores 1.2 1 2+ 3 Low Low
Baja 0 2+
Balleny 0 0
Bermuda 1.3 0 0 5.5 *
Bouvet 0.4 1 0 0 No swell MORB
Bowie .3? 2 2 Not fixed
Cameroon V. small 0 0 Crack Low
Canary 1 2 4 6.8 Low Low

Cape Verde 1.1 2 1 8 No track Med.

Caroline 1.6? 3 4 Not fixed
Circe 0 No swell
Cobb–Juan de Fuca 2 3 Not fixed
Comores 0 0
Cook-Australs 1 * MORB
Crozet 0.5 0 0 *
Darfur V. small 0 0
Discovery V. small 1 1
East Africa 1.1

East Australia 0.9 1 0

Eifel 0.5 0 0
Erebus Not fixed
Fernando Small 0
Foundation seamounts Fixed
Gough Low Low
Great Meteor V. small 0
Guadalupe 0 Not fixed Low
Gulf of Alaska
Hoggar V. small 1 1

Jan Mayen 1 2
Juan Fernandez 1.6 2 2 High
Kerguelen .9? 2 2 Low Med. Low
Lord Howe 0.9 1
Macdonald 3.3? 2 2 * Not fixed
Madeira
Marion 1
Meteor V. small
New England *
Pitcairn 3.3? 2 1 0.4 No swell* Not fixed Low
 Tomographic low-velocity zones
Temperature/ LVZ? LVZ? LVZ? LVZ? P-wave ULVZ
TZ heatflow LVZ?# 110 km 290 km 500 km 1000 km LM (region D″) LIP ?
[6] [7] [8] [9] [9] [2] [9] [10] [11] [12] LOCATION

Normal UM Yes Yes No Slow? No Yes Afar

Thin <150° UM No No Yes No Yes No No Sala y Gomez
? No anom. UM No No Yes ? No Yes No Hawaii
Normal? <70° UM Yes Yes Yes No No Yes Yes Iceland
UM No No Yes No Yes No Louisville
Normal NO No No No No Yes ? Réunion
<150–162° NO No No No No No No ? Tristan
Shallow No No No Yes Yes No Marquesas
Normal UM Yes No Yes Yes No Samoa
<70° NO Yes No No No No ? Galapagos

Yes No No Saint Paul

No No No No Yes No No Ascension
<70° NO Yes No Yes No No Azores
Yes No No No Baja
No No No Balleny
0 NO Fast No No No No Bermuda
No No No No No Bouvet
UM Yes No Yes No No Bowie
No Fast No No No No Cameroon
No Yes Yes Yes No Canary

NO No No ? No No Cape Verde
NO Fast No No Yes No Caroline
278° No No Circe
Yes Yes No Cobb–Juan de Fuca
No No No Comores
Normal Yes No Cook-Australs
No No Crozet
No No Darfur
No Discovery
No East Africa

No No No East Australia
No No No No No Eifel
No Mangaia
No No No Fernando
No Foundation seamounts
No Gough
No No No No No Great Meteor
No Guadalupe
No No No Gulf of Alaska
Yes No No Hoggar

NO No Yes Yes No Jan Mayen

Shallow No No No No Juan Fernandez
Shallow Yes No No No Kerguelen
Slow Lord Howe
UM No No Yes No Macdonald
No Madeira
No Marion
No Meteor
No No No No New England
Thin Shallow No No No No No Pitcairn
(continued)
36 D.L. Anderson

TABLE 1. Continued
Plume scores
BF CDBS Revised 3He/4He

Mg/s [Max = 5] [Max = 12] Geoid Fixity R/Ra He/

Location [1] [2] [3] m. Issues* [4] [5] [3He]§ Ne
Raton
San Felix 1.6? 1 1
Shimada Low
Shona MORB High
Socorro * Low
Saint Helena V. small 0 0 Low Low
Tahiti 3.3? 2 2 2 * Not fixed Low
Tasmanid 0.9? 1
Tibesti 0.4
Trinidade 0.7

Vema 0.4
Yellowstone 1.5 2 3 * Variable
Notes and sources: For definitions of terms used, see Appendix 2, section titled “Abbreviations and Definitions.”
[1] BF—buoyancy flux (Davies, 1988; Sleep, 1990; Phipps Morgan, 1997; Steinberger, 2000).
[2] CDBS—Courtillot et al. (2003).
[3] Based on twelve criteria (see text).
[4] Fixity and parallelism (Wessel and Kroenke, 1997; Koppers et al., 2001).
[5] Helium data (Ozima, 1994; Anderson, 1998a,b, 2000a,b, 2001a; Graham, 2002); R—3He/4He ratio; Ra—atmospheric ratio.
[6] TZ—transition zone thickness; see text.
[7] Heatflow and temperature; see text.
[8] LVZ—low-velocity zone (Ritsema and Allen, 2003).
[9] Various seismological studies; see text.
[10] LM—lower mantle (Montelli et al., 2004).
[11] ULVZ—ultra-low-velocity zone at base of mantle (Garnero et al., 1998).
[12] LIP—large igneous province.
*Special tectonic studies have been performed or the feature is related to a transform fault, fracture zone, abandoned ridge, tectonic crack, or so
on (Natland, 1980; Burke, 1996; McNutt et al., 1997; Dickinson, 1998; de Voogd et al., 1999; Favela and Anderson, 1999; McNutt and Bonneville, 2000;
Clouard and Bonneville, 2001; Christiansen et al., 2002; Dieu et al., 2002; Humphreys et al., 2003; Natland and Winterer, 2004; see Appendix 2).
§[3He]—3He content.
#Question marks indicate that the associated swell is small or absent.

Other abbreviations: TJ—triple junction; RRR—ridge-ridge-ridge TJ; TF—transform fault.; MORB—mid-oceanic ridge basalt.

abandoned ridge, tectonic crack, or so on (see also the column
labeled “Tectonics” in Appendix 1).
In this contribution I reconsider many of the melting anom-
alies that have been called hotspots or mantle plumes. I dwell on
those that previous authors have picked out as possibly being
caused by plumes because it is generally agreed that most hot-
spots are not caused by plumes; they have shallow tectonic ex-
planations. I expand the list of plume diagnostics, add thermal
criteria, check proxy parameters against real parameters, and
score alternative hypotheses with a polling scheme similar to that
used by Courtillot et al. (2003). In many studies, the plume ex-
planation is the only one discussed, and often the hypothesis is
modified if it fails to satisfy predictions or the definition of plume
is changed after the observations are made. In the polling method,
this is equivalent to changing the questions after the election.
Alternative hypotheses for melting anomalies and volcanic
chains involve phenomena associated with plates and plate tec-
tonics, such as small-scale convection, recycling, delamination,
leaky transform faults, passive upwellings, incipient plate bound-
aries, and so on. Some of these are convective in nature, while
others are basically tectonic. I refer to these collectively as
“plate” or “shallow” processes. Figure 1 summarizes the most
important attributes of the plume and plate models. The plume
hypothesis focuses on high temperature, while alternate hy-
potheses focus on plate tectonic processes such as stress, man-
tle heterogeneity, fertility variations, magma focusing, and
lithospheric fabric. In polling schemes it is important to have
criteria that are picked as objectively as possible. I pick criteria
that have the potential for distinguishing between mechanisms.
The method used here, as in CDBS, to set up the criteria and the
scoring is unavoidably partly subjective. Some of the criteria
are more subjective than others; this subjectivity is intrinsic to
the method and should be kept in mind. Examples of this sub-
jectivity are evident in the tables, where alternative scores, or
ranges, are sometimes given. A large number of references is
cited so that the readers may score for themselves.
 Scoring hotspots: The plume and plate paradigms 37

Tomographic low-velocity zones

Temperature/ LVZ? LVZ? LVZ? LVZ? P-wave ULVZ
TZ heatflow LVZ?# 110 km 290 km 500 km 1000 km LM (region D″) LIP ?
[6] [7] [8] [9] [9] [2] [9] [10] [11] [12] LOCATION
Yes No Raton
Shallow No No No No No San Felix
No Shimada
No Shona
Yes No Socorro
No No No No No No Saint Helena
NO No No Yes Yes No Tahiti
Yes No Yes Tasmanid
No No No Tibesti
No No Fast Yes No Trinidade

No Vema
Normal NO Yes No No No Yellowstone

SETTING UP THE CRITERIA
Tracks
A conspicuous but relatively small number of seamounts
and islands in the deep ocean basins are arranged in long linear
chains. The vast majority, however, occur as short chains or
isolated edifices. CDBS use the presence of a “hotspot track”
(actually, a volcanic chain, usually an island chain) as possible
evidence for a deep plume origin. Volcanic chains can also be
used as evidence for propagating cracks, leaky transform faults,
lateral dike propagation, self-propagating volcanic loads, aban-
doned ridges, incipient ridges (Anderson, 2002b), and other
superficial and plate tectonic processes. Although volcanic chains
are not unique signatures of a plume, simultaneity of magma-
tism along a track, erratic age progressions, and reactivated tec-
tonic features, which are characteristics of some chains, can be
used to suggest lithospheric control. In our evaluation a track per
se is not considered diagnostic, but complications in the chains
are taken into account. The presence of a volcanic chain is neu-
tral, with regard to mechanism, unless it has aberrant directions
and ages or lies along a preexisting feature such as a transform
fault or abandoned ridge. In terms of a polling question, we can
ask, “Is the hotspot associated with erratic age progression or
trend, or with a pre-existing tectonic feature?” A “Yes” answer
is a vote for the plate model; this does not disprove the plume
model, just as uniform age progression does not disprove the
tectonic, or plate, model. In the CDBS method one hopes that a
series of subjective judgments will add up to a valid conclusion.
The plume hypothesis predicts that there will be a swell or
large melting anomaly at one end of the chain, a large igneous
province at the other, and that ages along the chain will exhibit
unilateral age progression. The absence of these characteristics
suggests a tectonic or nonplume origin. The properties of indi-
vidual volcanic chains are discussed by Morgan (1981); Mam-
merickx (1992); Burke (1996); McNutt et al. (1997); Wessel and
Kroenke (1997); Dickinson (1998); Favela and Anderson (1999);
and Koppers et al. (2001), among others. Many of the volcanic
chains on the Pacific and African plates have already been dis-
counted as having a deep or plume origin (e.g., in Burke, 1996;
McNutt et al., 1997; Wessel and Kroenke, 1997; Dickinson, 1998;
Favela and Anderson, 1999; Koppers et al., 2001; and Natland
and Winterer, this volume).
Buoyancy Flux
Morgan’s plume hypothesis implies a lower bound for the
flux of a plume. CDBS adopt 1 mg/sec for this lower bound, cor-
responding to the weakest plume that can rise through the man-
tle in 10 m.y. and still melt under thick plates (Griffiths and
Campbell, 1991). Alternatives to the plume hypotheses do not
have a threshold flux but involve parameters such as stress,
magma viscosity, and mantle fertility and density—and the abil-
ity of dikes to penetrate plates. The orientation and magnitude
of the local stress controls whether dikes can penetrate the litho-
sphere, and this and the melting point, not the flux of buoyancy
into the shallow mantle, determine whether magmatism will oc-
cur. In this case, large flux simply represents a long period of
crustal extension or ponding, focusing, or high mantle fertility.
The magnitude of the BF or the presence or absence of an
inferred associated large igneous province has no bearing on the
viability of alternative models. CDBS quote Sleep (1990) as
their source for buoyancy fluxes. A number of Sleep’s tabulated
values are admittedly guesses, because there is no swell from
which to calculate BF. Firmer estimates are available (Davies,
1988; Schilling, 1991; Feighner et al., 1995; Phipps Morgan,
1997; de Voogd et al., 1999; Steinberger, 2000). Although BF is
a quantitative criterion, judgment is required in its calculation
Figure 1. A schematic cross-section of the Earth showing the plume model (to the left, modified from Courtillot et al., 2003, with additions from
other sources) and the plate model (to the right). The left side illustrates three proposed kinds of hotspots or plumes. In the deep mantle, narrow
tubes (inferred) and giant upwellings coexist. Melting anomalies are localized by narrow upwelling plumes, which bring material from great
depth to the volcanoes. In the various plume models the deep mantle provides the material, and the deep mantle or core provides the heat for
hotspots; large isolated but accessible reservoirs, rather than dispersed components, and sampling differences account for geochemical variabil-
ity. Deep slab penetration, true polar wander, core heat, and mantle avalanches are important. Red regions are assumed to be hot and buoyant;
blue regions are cold and dense. Only a few hotspots are claimed to be the result of deep narrow plumes extending to the core-mantle boundary
—different authors have different candidates. The schematic is based on fluid dynamic experiments that ignore pressure effects and, of necessity,
have low viscosity relative to conductivity.
The right side indicates the important attributes of the plate model: variable depths of recycling, migrating ridges and trenches, a concen-
tration of volcanism in tensile regions of the plates, an inhomogeneous and active upper mantle, an isolated and sluggish lower mantle, and
pressure-broadened ancient features in the deep mantle. Low-density regions in both the shallow and the deep mantle cause uplift and extension
of the lithosphere. Melting anomalies are localized by the stress conditions and fabric of the plate and by the fertility of the mantle. Large-scale
features are consistent with the viscosity-conductivity-thermal expansion relations of the mantle. In the plate model the upper mantle (down to
~1000 km, the Repetti discontinuity) contains recycled and delaminated material of various ages and dimensions. These materials equilibrate at
various times and depths. Migrating ridges, including incipient ridges and other plate boundaries, sample the dispersed components in this hetero-
geneous mantle. The upper 1000 km (Bullen’s regions B and C) is the active and accessible layer. The deep mantle (regions D and D″), although
interesting and important, is sluggish and inaccessible. The geochemical components of mid-oceanic ridge basalts, ocean island basalts, etc., are
in the upper mantle and are mainly recycled surface materials. The red and blue regions are, respectively, regions of low and high seismic ve-
locity, not necessarily hot and cold regions, although some of the red regions at the top and base of the mantle demonstrate low seismic velocity
due to the presence of a melt.
 Scoring hotspots: The plume and plate paradigms 39

TABLE 2. SUMMARY SCORES, PLUME AND PLATE MODELS

Plume scores
Hotspot Old New Tectonic Plate
name (CDBS) (this paper) Issues§ context score
Afar 4 3 Elevation? TJ,, new ridge 4 to 5
Bouvet 1+? 1 Chemistry Ridge ~3
Easter 4+? 3 Hotline, no swell Ridge, FZ ~5
Galapagos 2+? 2 Geoid? no swell Diffuse, near ridge ~5
Hawaii 4+? 3 Thermal swell? ** 3 to 4
Kerguelen 2+ 2 No swell Microcontinent 3 to 4
Iceland 4+ 2 Crust Suture, EDGE 4 to 5*
Louisville 3+? 3 End? no swell No spot 2 to 4
Macdonald 2+? 2+? End? Ages? No spot 3 to 5
Marquesas 2+? 2+? Trend FZ* 4 to 5*
Pitcairn 2+? 2 Geoid, no swell FZ 3 to 4
Réunion 4 3 Ridge-FZ* RTF* 4 to 5*
Samoa 4 3 Tonga-FZ, no swell Tear? 3 to 4*
Tahiti 2+ 2 Reactivated * 3 to 5*
Tristan 3 1 FZ * 4 to 5
Cape Verde 2 1 No track EDGE 4 to 5*
Source: Table based on the five criteria of Courtillot et al., 2003 (CDBS).
Notes: Abbreviations: TJ—triple junction; FZ—fracture zone; EDGE—edge-induced gyres and eddies;
RTF—ridge-transform fault intersection (abandoned).
For definitions of terms used, see Appendix 2, section titled “Abbreviations and Definitions.”
§Possible problems with the plume hypothesis (see Appendix 2).

*Special studies suggest shallow or tectonic origin.

**Self-perpetuating volcanic chain?

and in choosing representative values from those that have been
tabulated. The BF entries in Table 1 have question marks (?) if
the associated swell is small or absent. Table 2 summarizes, for
the larger hotspots, the original (CDBS) scores, using the CDBS
criteria, those that result from alternate values for BF, and other
parameters to be discussed later. Table 2 also gives a prelimi-
nary attempt (in the last column) to score the hotspots in terms
of the plate hypothesis, using these same criteria plus the results
of special studies. The results suggest that these criteria may not
be adequate to discriminate between the plate and plume models.
Some of these preliminary scores will change slightly in subse-
quent tables to account for other criteria reevaluated and for new
data that became available.
Helium
A “high” 3He/4He ratio (“compared to the average of
MORB,” or mid-ocean ridge basalts) is a commonly used plume
signature. It is thought (erroneously) to be a proxy for high 3He
content and “undegassed” mantle. In some geochemical models,
“excess 3He” is an assumed plume or deep mantle diagnostic.
Most OIB have low 3He contents compared to MORB. This
paradox can be understood if OIB (more so than MORB) are
heavily degassed upon eruption. Because the solubility of He is
higher than that of Ne and Ar, residual magma should have high
He/Ne and He/Ar ratios compared to MORB or compared to
“solar” or production ratios (Ozima, 1994; Anderson, 1998a,b,
1999a,b, 2000a,b, 2001a; Graham, 2002). High He/Ne ratios
can be taken as confirmation that high 3He/4He ratio magmas or
glasses with low 3He have indeed been degassed. High 3He/4He
ratios accompanied by high 3He content or high 3He/22Ne is
therefore a better proxy for a source with high 3He content than
helium ratios alone. Otherwise a high 3He/4He ratio may simply
represent a frozen-in ancient ratio of a gas that was encapsulated
in a low-U environment since the degassing event (Anderson,
1998a,b), or it may represent part of the tail of a normal (Gauss-
ian) distribution that is apparent only in small-scale or shallow
sampling, compared to the situation at spreading ridges, which
average large volumes over great depths (Meibom and Ander-
son, 2003). Comparing extreme values in one population with
means in another is also not statistically valid.
3He content, abbreviated [3He], of the source is the param-
eter needed. This is thought to be unreliable, so I use He/Ne
ratios and mean 3He/4He ratios and variances in evaluating
hotspots for high [3He]. Table 3 summarizes CDBS helium iso-
tope rankings and, for comparison, average values for various
hotspots. Some basalts have been assigned plume status because
of extreme values but have 3He/4He average ratios that are sta-
tistically identical to MORB. Very low noble gas contents, low
He/Ne and He/Ar ratios, and high variability (compared to
MORB) are consistent with non-plume mechanisms involving
shallow high-3He/U components, small degrees of melting and
less melt homogenization than at fast spreading ridges (Ander-
son, 1998a, 2000b; Meibom and Anderson, 2003).
40 D.L. Anderson

TABLE 3. HELIUM RATIOS AND REVISED SCORES

Helium-3/Helium-4
R/Ra Relative He/ Plume Revised
“Most” mean to MORB Ne score score Heatflow
Location [1] [2] S.D. [2] [2, 3] [1] [4] [5]
Afar High 8.24 5.41 MORB 4 3
Bouvet High 8.44 2.88 Low 1 0
Easter High 9.53 2.95 MORB? 4 2
Galapagos High 8.12 1.17 MORB 2 0
Hawaii High Large High Low 4 3 Normal
Kerguelen High 8 2.87 MORB Low 2 1
Iceland High 10.6 6.63 High Low 4 3 Normal
Louisville 3 2
Macdonald High? 7.37 1.2 Low 2 1
Marquesas Low 7 Low 2 2 Normal
Pitcairn High? 11 Low 2 1
Réunion High 12 Low High Low 4 2 Normal
Samoa High 15.93 4.54 High Low 4 2
Tahiti High? MORB 2 1
Tristan Low 7 Low 3 2
Cape Verde High ~10 ~2 Low 2 1 Normal
Sources and Notes:
[1] Courtillot et al. (2003).
[2] R—3He/4He ratio; Ra—atmospheric ratio; MORB—mid-oceanic ridge basalt (Anderson, 2000a,b).
[3] Graham (2002).
[4] Corrected for He and buoyancy fluxes.
[5] Stein and Stein (2002) and www.mantleplumes.org.

CDBS use R as a proxy for “high [3He],” defined as “almost
all 3He/4He values [are] on the high side of the MORB average
value,” or “consistently higher than 10 times the atmospheric
ratio.” The actual value to be used for the MORB average is
controversial. Graham (2002) obtains 8.75 times the atmos-
pheric ratio (Ra) for the global average and 9.58 Ra for Atlantic
ocean MORB. Anderson (2000b) obtains 9.14 ± 3.59 Ra for
basalts from the global spreading ridge system. The value
adopted by CDBS is therefore well within the range of current
estimates of nonplume basalts. However, most authors adopt 8
Ra (based on less complete data sets) as the average for MORB,
with 9 Ra as an upper bound. There is no correlation between
high R, however defined, and other proposed plume indicators,
including [3He]. [3He] and He/Ne are generally high for MORB
and low for OIB. This, of course, is desirable in multiproxy
voting schemes. In the present scheme the plume criterion is
this: the average 3He/4He ratio is significantly higher than the
MORB average, and the He/Ne ratio is higher than MORB.
Table 3 compares evaluations for the important hotspots.
Some of the “primary” hotspots are demoted from previous
scores when different (i.e., statistical) criteria are adopted for
the significance of the helium ratios. Many hotspot basalts and
glasses have considerably larger variance in R/Ra than MORB
and have some extreme values, but still are statistically the same
as MORB (Anderson, 2000a,b). Alternate scores, with different
BF and helium criteria, are also given. There is also some sub-
jectivity in associating hotspots with distant large igneous prov-
inces, and in some cases this has affected the revised score. Most
of the prominent hotspots now satisfy only two or fewer of the
criteria judged to be important by CDBS. Later I will replace the
five CDBS criteria with twelve different criteria. The resulting
scores should be more robust—and more discriminating.
Mantle Temperatures
CDBS do not use high heatflow or high magma tempera-
tures as criteria for plumes. The temperature increase across the
thermal boundary layer at the core-mantle boundary is at least
1200 °C, and most of this temperature excess will be carried to
the surface in strong plumes (Albers and Christensen, 1996).
Plumes with BF less than 1 mg/s will have cooled so much that
they will not melt beneath old lithosphere. If the buoyancy of a
plume is low, it will become entrained in the mantle flow. Such
a “plume” will not differ from an embedded chemical hetero-
geneity, one of the alternative ways for generating melting
anomalies without the necessity for bottom heating, high temper-
ature, or an active upwelling. A passive chemical heterogeneity
can be introduced into the mantle from above by plate tectonic
processes, e.g., delamination, recycling, melt migration, and so
on. For a few volcanic islands and melting anomalies along
ridges, there are estimates of heatflow, magma or shallow man-
tle temperature, and extent of melting, e.g., those of Anderson
(2000c) and references therein. Iceland, Hawaii, and Cape Verde,
among others, are not high heatflow areas (nor do they have
consistent or deep tomographic anomalies). Most hotspots for
which there are data have normal temperatures or inferred temper-
 Scoring hotspots: The plume and plate paradigms
ature excesses of 150 degrees or less, usually considerably less,
and have normal heatflow.
Sleep (1990) assigns an excess temperature of 225 °C in
order to estimate plume flux. I adopt this (magma or source
temperature >225 °C above a ridge reference value) as a possible
plume diagnostic when scoring the temperature criteria, and this
is used in the expanded criteria list discussed later. This is ultra-
conservative, because plate tectonic processes, without plumes,
can give temperature variations that are this high (Kaula, 1983;
Anderson, 2000c), and plume theory needs much higher temper-
ature excesses, even for plume heads (Davies, 1988, 1990, 1999;
Albers and Christensen, 1996; Cordery et al., 1997; Farnetani,
1997). In some recent studies, temperature excesses as low as
50 degrees greater than “filtered” mid-ocean ridge temperatures
(those that are “far from the influence of hotspots”) are attrib-
uted to plumes. This is untenable. Some Archean komatiites ap-
proach the temperatures required for present-day plumes (if they
are volatile-free), but the average oceanic mantle must also have
been hotter in the Archean. The origin of komatiites is currently
being debated. Both plume and subduction (e.g., plate) mecha-
nisms have been proposed (Grove and Parman, 2004). One can-
not use Archean komatiite temperatures as evidence for hot
plumes or as constraints on today’s mantle temperatures. The
appropriate poll question is this: “Is the inferred mantle temper-
ature >225 °C higher than MORB-mantle, or is the heatflow
higher than measured for equivalent-aged crust?”
If heatflow is low or the inferred excess temperature is
<225 °C (or if the BF is low), the melting anomaly is probably
not due to high enough temperatures or fluxes to invoke a deep
thermal boundary layer. A passive chemical heterogeneity is
likely in these cases. Such heterogeneities are intrinsic to plate
theory because of recycling. The lack of a thermal swell, uplift,
heatflow anomaly, or lithospheric rejuvenation implies a non-
thermal explanation. Anderson (2002d) and Schilling (1991)
and references therein summarize magma temperatures and up-
per mantle temperatures near hotspots.
Tomography
Seismic results are drawn from numerous references (Best
et al., 1974; Sipkin and Jordan, 1975; Inoue et al., 1990; Ander-
son et al., 1992a,b; Grand, 1994; Zhou, 1996; Bijwaard et al.,
1998; Katzman et al., 1998; Bijwaard and Spakman, 1999;
Boschi and Dziewonski, 1999; Ritsema et al., 1999; Dziewon-
ski, 2000; Nataf, 2000; Ritsema and van Heijst, 2000; Foulger
and Pearson, 2001; Fukao et al., 2001; Gu et al., 2001, 2003;
Zhao, 2001; Christiansen et al., 2002; Ritsema and Allen, 2003;
and Montelli et al., 2004).
Because plumes are active upwellings, they should heat and
thin the lithosphere and spread out beneath it (Anderson et al.,
1992a). These features are readily detectable by surface wave
and receiver function studies, even if narrow plume tails are
not. Passive upwellings, as at ridges, focus toward the ridge, to
replace the material being carried away laterally. Upper mantle
41
low-velocity zones associated with plumes should be broader
and deeper than those associated with spreading ridges and
should be pancake-shaped rather than funnel- or tent-shaped.
Plumes should also spread out beneath the 650 km endothermic
phase boundary, a barrier that converts the hypothetical narrow
hot upwelling to another broad pancake-shaped feature near
650 km depth. Evidence from tomography for hot material
near 650 km and 100–200 km and for thinning of the transition
region is considered strong evidence for a deep plume. A nor-
mal passive ridge causes deep upper mantle isotherms to be ad-
vected upward, and these generate melt as fast as needed for the
plate creation process. Ponding is minimal in these and other
cases of passive upwelling but can occur at midplate locations
if the asthenosphere is near or above the melting point and if the
plate is under lateral compression. Narrow plume tails are diffi-
cult to detect, but some authors claim to see evidence for them
(e.g., Nataf, 2000; Montelli et al., 2004) or assume that they
exist (e.g., CDBS, Fig. 4). Low-velocity zones are not evi-
dence for mantle plumes as defined here unless they start in a
thermal boundary layer, spread out at barriers, elevate the 650
km phase change boundary, and culminate in a large BF hotspot
or swell at the surface. They should also thin the transition zone.
Courtillot et al. (2003) use low shear wave velocity at 500
km depth, regardless of scale, as a possible criterion of a deep
mantle plume. Both Iceland and Afar have slow seismic anom-
alies at 500 km that have, however, been demonstrated to be
restricted to the upper mantle (Ritsema and van Heijst, 2000;
Ritsema and Allen, 2003). Iceland, Hawaii, Afar, and most of the
other CDBS primary hotspots do not have low-velocity zones
either in the top of the lower mantle or in the lowermost 1000
km of the mantle (e.g., Ritsema and van Heijst, 2000; Montelli
et al., 2004). Some hotspots are on the edges of very large
regional low-velocity zones, and in CDBS these are counted as
“hits.” Sometimes a single large low-velocity zone is associated
with two or three hotspots and is counted two or three times as
evidence for a deep plume (e.g., Montelli et al., 2004).
I strengthen the CDBS test by adding seismological results
from a large number of studies (references are at the end of this
section). I tabulate results at shallow depths and depths of 100–
300 km, 500 km, and 1000 km (at the top of Bullen’s region D)
and the average P-wave velocity in the lowermost 1000 km of
the mantle. A low-velocity zone extending from 100 to >1000 km
depth is considered a strong plume diagnostic. For purposes of
tabulation, the polling question is simply this: “Is there a low-
velocity zone at the given depth?” The base of the mantle (re-
gion D″) has a number of ultra-low-velocity zones, and the
presence of these is tabulated for information. Results are given
in Table 1. Out of forty-nine hotspots, approximately twelve will
lie, by chance, above seismic velocities that are in the lowest
quartile of the distribution at any given depth, even if they are
placed randomly.
Tomographic models for the lower mantle do not yet all agree.
In particular, there are differences between shear wave (S-wave)
and compressional wave (P-wave) models and differences that
42 D.L. Anderson
can be attributed to damping (of the model) and coverage (of the
data). For the average P-wave velocity in the lower 1000 km of
the mantle I adopt the conclusions of Montelli et al. (2004) based
on P-waves. For shallower regions I consult many tomographic
and receiver function studies, both global and regional (see ref-
erences that follow). Surface waves are essential to get coverage
in the upper mantle. S-wave, surface wave, and normal mode
models have better coverage than P-wave models; there are
large gaps in the P-wave models (e.g., Montelli et al., 2004).
There is a great deal of subjectivity in relating hotspots to tomo-
graphic anomalies. By consulting the references provided read-
ers can verify or change the judgments and summary scores that
are in the tables of CDBS and the present paper. It is of interest
that Afar, Easter Island, Hawaii, Iceland, Louisville, and Samoa
have low velocities at 500 km depth, but not, in general, at 290
and 1000 km depth.
Transition Zone Thickness
One of the potentially most powerful methods to test for
the presence and ascent of hot mantle plumes from the lower
mantle is to determine the depths and shapes of the upper man-
tle phase-change discontinuities. This provides a critical test
of the primary plume hypothesis and a test of whether low-
velocity zones in the deep mantle (e.g., Inoue et al., 1990; Zhao,
2001; Montelli et al., 2004) are connected to the surface. CDBS
and Montelli et al. (2004) do not apply this test.
A hot plume should elevate the 650 km discontinuity,
spread out beneath it, narrow down as it penetrates into the low-
viscosity upper mantle, and depress the 400 km discontinuity.
Thus a plume in the mantle is not just a narrow cylindrical up-
welling or a localized low-velocity zone (see CDBS, Fig. 4);
plumes, if they exist, have several features that are detectable
by seismic means. Transition zone thickness is a proxy for some
of these complications and complements and extends the CDBS
criteria of low shear wave velocities at 500 km depth. Low ve-
locity combined with a thin transition zone is evidence that high
temperatures may extend to at least 500 km depth. The transi-
tion zone data in Table 1 are from Flanagan and Shearer (1998,
1999); Gu et al. (1998); Shearer and Flanagan (1999); Shearer
et al. (1999); Nyblade et al. (2000); Shearer (2000); Gilbert
et al. (2001, 2003); Gu and Dziewonski (2001); and Li et al.
(2003). For more on transition zone thickness, see www.mantle
plumes.org/transitionzone.html.
Flood Basalts
In the plume hypothesis large igneous provinces, conti-
nental flood basalts, and oceanic plateaus are considered mani-
festations of plume heads (e.g., Courtillot et al., 1999). Plume
heads are an essential element of plume theory because they
provide the necessary buoyancy for plume ascent (Campbell
and Griffiths, 1990; Cordery et al., 1997). The large buoyant head
“pulls up” the narrow “tail,” which could not rise on its own.
Plume heads are predicted to be up to 1000 km in diameter. Such
large features, or their flattened equivalents in the shallow
mantle, would be easily detected by seismology—if they exist
(Anderson et al., 1992b). In the plume hypothesis the “tail” gen-
erates “hotspot tracks” on the overlying lithosphere. The absence
of a large igneous province at the starting end of a volcanic chain
is a strong argument against a plume explanation for that chain
(Campbell and Griffiths, 1990; Clouard and Bonneville, 2001).
Most volcanic chains do not have an associated large ig-
neous province, and most large igneous provinces do not have
an obvious or plausible volcanic chain associated with them.
This is consistent with the CDBS result that only a few hotspots
can be related to deep mantle plumes. Thus a large igneous
province cannot be a unique signature of a plume. Few of the
large Pacific plateaus are connected to island chains. Some large
igneous provinces (Kerguelen, Jan Mayen, Wrangellia, and all
continental flood basalts) are underlain by continental or arc crust.
The largest continental flood basalt (CFB) province (Siberia)
and the largest oceanic plateau (the Ontong-Java plateau) were
not emplaced atop swells, as required by the plume hypothesis
(Czamanske et al., 1998; Tejada et al., 2004). They have none
of the characteristics predicted for plume heads except for large
volume. The seismic anomalies attributed by Montelli et al.
(2004) to deep mantle plume tails likewise do not have plume
heads, nor do they apparently start in a thermal boundary layer.
Low-velocity anomalies do not have to be plumes.
CDBS make the following hotspot–large igneous province
associations: Easter Island–mid-Pacific mountains, Galapagos-
Caribbean, Hawaii–subducted plateau (?), Louisville–Ontong-
Java, Marion-Madagascar, Réunion-Deccan, and Marquesas-
Shatsky (?). Other authors have suggested relations between Jan
Mayen, Kerguelen, and Great Meteor seamount with Siberian
CFB, Broken ridge, or Rajmahal and Montreal volcanics. These
are all subjective, even questionable, associations, but some
degree of subjectivity is intrinsic to the method. The reevaluation
of BF, swells, and helium ratios in previous sections affects the
status of some of the proposed primary hotspots.
Many CFBs are emplaced in suture zones adjacent to thick
Archean lithosphere (Archon), and many so-called hotspot tracks
lie along preexisting linear tectonic features, suggesting tectonic
control. I follow CDBS and Clouard and Bonneville (2001) in
the use of large igneous provinces as a potential plume criterion.
I do not assume that there is an undiscovered plume head at the
end of the Emperor chain.
If a hotspot does not have a large associated thermal swell,
heatflow anomaly, high magma temperatures, precursory uplift,
or evidence of lithosphere rejuvenation, an athermal nonplume,
and probably shallow, explanation is preferred. Low [3He] and
He/Ne ratios are evidence against current versions of plume
models, but isotopic data, in general, are not relevant to the depth,
location, or temperature of the source: such data can be inter-
preted in terms of sampling theory and dispersed components
rather than isolated reservoirs. The variances of geochemical ra-
tios of various populations of magma, however, are diagnostic
 Scoring hotspots: The plume and plate paradigms
of the degree of melting or magma blending (Meibom and An-
derson, 2003). Sampling theory predicts that basalts from large-
volume averagers and blenders, such as ridges, particularly
fast-spreading ridges, should be more homogeneous than those
from smaller-scale samplers such as oceanic islands, seamounts,
and individual lava flows on volcanic islands.
Tectonic Context and Special Studies
Special studies and detailed bathymetry and ocean floor age
maps, unavailable to Morgan, have established that a number
of hotspots, including most of the CDBS “primary” ones, have
shallow tectonic explanations. These include Cook-Australs
(McNutt et al., 1997; Dickinson, 1998), Marquesas (McNutt and
Bonneville, 2000), Samoa (Natland, 1980; Dieu et al., 2002),
Réunion (Nercessian et al., 1996; de Voogd et al., 1999) and
others on the African plate (Burke, 1996), Yellowstone (Chris-
tiansen et al., 2002), and Iceland (Foulger, 2002). Summary
papers that investigate fixity, parallelism, age progressions, tec-
tonic context, and shallow tomography include Sykes (1978);
Anderson et al. (1992a,b); Wessel and Kroenke (1997); Baksi
(1999); Favela and Anderson (1999); Clouard and Bonneville
(2001); and Koppers et al. (2001). A few case studies are dis-
cussed in Appendix 2.
Fixity
The discussion by Morgan (1971) included fixity as an ar-
gument for deep mantle plumes. The original criteria are no
longer viable (Tarduno et al., 2003). However, many in the geo-
dynamics and geochemical communities still continue to use
“fixity” as a justification for various plume models, even in re-
cent summaries of the arguments for plumes (e.g., DePaolo and
Manga, 2003). However, now there are several observations to
explain (Tarduno et al., 2003, and personal commun., 2004):
1. The focus of Emperor seamount volcanism moved at high
rates, relative to the magnetic pole, of ~40 mm/yr from 81
to 47 Ma.
2. Hawaiian volcanism has moved at a much slower rate.
3. The Atlantic and Pacific hotspots seem to define domains
where motion within a domain is much smaller than be-
tween domains (Tarduno and Gee, 1995; Tarduno and Cot-
trell, 1997).
4. The Emperor and Hawaiian chains have different trends, and
also show discrepancies with other volcanic chains on the
Pacific plate and with other indicators of changes in plate
motions.
5. The Hawaiian chain has shown a change in direction (Wes-
sel and Kroenke, 2000) and increased BF in the past six mil-
lion years, and order of magnitude variations in flux along
the chain.
The question now is whether changes in stress in the plate
or changes in plate motions are responsible for these observa-
43
tions and the recent changes in orientation of Hawaiian volca-
noes, and perhaps others in the Pacific (Wessel and Kroenke,
1997, 2000). One can no longer assume that the orientation of a
volcanic chain is an indicator of absolute plate motion. If “fix-
ity” is off the table, alternative mechanisms such as propagating
cracks and passive mantle heterogeneities are back on it.
PROCEDURES
In the tables I tabulate the CDBS criteria and ratings along
with updated, or corrected, values of some parameters (BF,
tomography, noble gas parameters). The original CDBS scores
(using plume proxies) are given in Tables 1, 2, and 3. These
scores correspond to the number of the selected criteria that are,
or may be, satisfied by a given hotspot. The maximum score is
5. Some of the highest ranked hotspots lose one or two points
with newer, or less subjective, BF estimates and different proxies
for [3He]. Most of the primary hotspots have corrected scores
of 2 or 3 after the values for buoyancy flux and helium isotopes
have been updated. Table 2 also gives subjective scores for the
plate hypothesis (labeled “Plate score”). These scores also take
into account information contained in special studies and de-
tailed bathymetric maps (Smith and Sandwell, 1997).
The presence of a volcanic chain, age-progressive or not, is
consistent with incipient plate boundaries, cracks, and stress.
Absence of a swell or geoid bump favors the crack and
stress mechanisms, as do low heatflow and temperature. A pre-
existing transform fault or fracture zone is a plus for the crack
idea (many hotspots are on older fracture zones of the same
name). The lack of a plume head, or large igneous province, is
fatal to the plume hypothesis (Campbell and Griffiths, 1990),
but in all the ranking schemes discussed, both here and in
CDBS, just one vote is involved.
One can think of a number of additional criteria. The cri-
teria used include tomographic information at various depths,
transition zone thickness, thermal and heatflow data, nature of
the volcanic chain, tectonic context, and additional noble gas
parameters to replace the proxy parameters used in CDBS. Of
course most of these criteria are not available for most of the vol-
canic regions that have been called hotspots, so a score of 4 or
5, for either model, is considered high. When these criteria are
used, a hotspot can get up to twelve points for either hypothe-
sis. A set of scores is given (Table 4) using these criteria. Scor-
ing is again subjective. One can pick and choose among the
criteria, weight them in different ways, and choose between
conflicting results in the literature.
With the additional thermal and tomographic tests, Afar and
Iceland are the highest-ranking hotspots in the context of the
plume hypothesis. Interestingly, they are both on relatively new
ridges, in relatively narrow oceans, and have tomographic
anomalies that are clearly restricted to the upper mantle. These
two hotspots score high primarily because of the low seismic ve-
locities throughout the upper mantle. The rest of the proposed
primary hotspots have scores that are little changed from those
44 D.L. Anderson

TABLE 4. SUMMARY SCORES sequences of plate tectonics and are basically athermal in nature.
I refer to these mechanisms collectively as “the plate hypothe-
Plume Plate
Hotspot score score sis,” “plate mechanisms.” or simply “plate” (see Appendix 2).
[ Max is 12 ]
Volcanoes are regarded as stress gages rather than motion de-
Afar 6? 6 tectors. The fecundity of a linear feature depends on tectonic
Easter–Sala y Gomez 4 12 stress; stress can turn on and shut off dikes and modulate mag-
Hawaii 4? 7 matism along a crack or boundary.
Iceland 8? 7 Most of the strongest candidates for a plume origin have
Louisville 3? 7
Réunion 1? 9
four or fewer plume characteristics (Table 4). That is, they
Tristan 1? 12 have only three or four of the following twelve attributes: age-
Marquesas 3? 8 progressive tracks; large swells; high proxy [3He]; an associated
Samoa 4? 6 large igneous province; high heatflow; tomographic anomalies
Galapagos 2? 9 at 100, 290, 500, and 1000 km depths and in the lower mantle;
Amsterdam–Saint Paul 1 4
Azores 2+ 7
thin transition zone; and high magma temperature. Individual
Bouvet 0 9 hotspots often score higher on the same criteria for the plate
Bowie 2 5 hypothesis. Most of the primary hotspots score above 5, mean-
Canary 4 5 ing that they satisfy five or more of the criteria that would favor
Cape Verde 1 8 a plate explanation over a plume explanation. Some of the cri-
Caroline 4 6
Cobb–Juan de Fuca 3 5
teria for a tectonic origin are negative, i.e., absence of a swell,
Cook-Australs/Macdonald 2 6 absence of low-velocity zones at various depths, absence of an
Crozet 0 3 age-progressive volcanic chain, absence of a heatflow anomaly,
Eifel 0 6 and so on. These are not definitive, but they allow the plate and
Jan Mayen 2 4 plume hypotheses to be compared using the same criteria. Low-
Juan Fernandez 2 6
Kerguelen 2 6
temperature magmas or sources (relative to MORB), low heat-
New England–Great Meteor 0 7 flow, and evidence for emplacement along a preexisting fracture
Pitcairn 1 10 zone, transform fault, or ridge can be considered positive attri-
San Felix 1 6 butes that favor the plate hypothesis.
Saint Helena–Cameroon 0 7 The plate hypothesis assumes that the upper mantle is near
Tahiti 2 6
Yellowstone 3 6
the melting point and is variable in fertility, temperature, and
solidus temperature. A small change in temperature, volatile
content, and composition can have a large effect on melt vol-
umes for a near-solidus mantle. Plate and plate tectonic–induced
perturbations can generate “melting anomalies.” A similar de-
in CDBS even though, in principle, they could have increased bate is ongoing regarding the plume versus plate (subduction)
their scores by seven points. The Canary and Caroline chains origin of komatiites and other high-temperature magmas (Grove
have scores of 4, meaning that they satisfy one-third of the cri- and Parman, 2004).
teria for plumes. Réunion and Tristan have lost points; both
have plausible tectonic explanations. The plate score is gener- TOMOGRAPHIC TESTS: DISCUSSION
ally higher than the plume score. If it could be shown that the
low seismic velocities in the upper mantle are controlled mainly High-resolution tomographic models typically show low-
by composition, water or CO2 contents, fertility, or other factors velocity patches of varying sizes at various depths in the man-
(see Anderson, 1989) rather than high temperatures, Iceland and tle (e.g., Inoue et al., 1990; Zhou, 1996; Ritsema and van Heijst,
Afar would have higher plate scores. 2000; Zhao, 2001). There are several tests to see if these are
candidates for plumes. The first is statistical. Monte Carlo or
ATHERMAL MECHANISMS similar tests can be used to calculate the odds that some fraction
of these will correlate with a hotspot on some hotspot list, even
All of the nonplume explanations for volcanic chains, and if they are randomly placed. There are approximately five hot-
other features that have been attributed to plumes (e.g., Cour- spot lists ranging in size from 7 to more than 110, with 50 to
tillot et al., 2003), can be considered implicit in plate tectonics. 60 on lists that are currently used. The odds are high that
Incipient and dying plate boundaries, leaky transform faults, approximately six hotspots will correlate with a lower mantle
cracks, extensional terranes, reactivated sutures and fracture low-velocity patch, even if both the anomalies and the hotspots
zones, small-scale convection associated with plate motions are placed randomly. The odds that any given hotspot will cor-
and architecture, edge effects, and fertility variations are con- relate with a deep mantle tomographic anomaly are low, but the
 Scoring hotspots: The plume and plate paradigms
odds are very high that some hotspots will be near the surface
projection of a deep low-velocity region. Some seismologists
define any low-velocity zone as a “plume” (e.g., Nataf, 2000;
Montelli et al., 2004), regardless of size or amplitude. Current
practice is to associate low-velocity anomalies in the mantle
with a surface hotspot if the surface projections of the anomalies
are within 1000 km of the hotspot (e.g., Nataf, 2000).
The association of isolated tomographic anomalies with
hotspots (or ancient slabs) is a statistical game, and the results
depend on the choice of parameters. Claims of global correla-
tions of hotspot lists with tomographic maps (e.g., Courtillot
et al., 2003; Montelli et al., 2004), in order to be credible, need
statistical tests to evaluate the significance of the claims. It would
not be surprising, nor would it be significant, if between six and
nine hotspots happened to “correlate” with a low-velocity zone
at some depth in the mantle. The other test is to see if lower man-
tle anomalies also correspond to transition zone, upper mantle,
or surface anomalies. In general, there is no correlation between
deep tomography and surface tectonics, hotspots, or shallow
tomography (Scrivner and Anderson, 1992; Ray and Anderson,
1994; Wen and Anderson, 1995; Anderson, 2002a; Becker and
Boschi, 2002) and no correlation between the size, depth, or am-
plitude of a tomographic anomaly and the flux of a hotspot (Zhao,
2001). Although the mantle under Hawaii may have some lower-
than-average velocity patches, one perhaps as deep as 1000 km
(Inoue et al., 1990; but see Zhao, 2001), the shallow mantle, the
average of the whole mantle, and the lower 1000 km of the man-
tle are not anomalous (Best et al., 1974; Sipkin and Jordan,
1975). Because Hawaii is generally considered the strongest
plume on Earth, this is food for thought.
CDBS use low shear velocity at 500 km depth as their sin-
gle tomographic plume criteria. I consider tomographic results
for additional depths and include recent “high-resolution” P-wave
and additional S-wave models as well. Seismic anomalies, both
positive and negative, in the deep mantle have often been at-
tributed to deep plumes (see Nataf, 2000), but continuity to the
surface, or even to the upper mantle, has not been demonstrated.
The presence of an anomaly in the deep mantle is not proof that
this anomaly is, or has been, connected to the surface or to a deep
thermal boundary layer. Even in an irreversibly stratified Earth,
with no transfer of material between layers, there will be, by
chance, thermal coupling or projection artifacts and some
apparent correlations between layers. Even random noise will
show some correlations between layers.
Montelli et al. (2004) used finite-frequency P-wave tomog-
raphy (an improvement over ray theory) to detect or verify (from
previous studies) approximately twelve broad low-velocity zones
in the lower mantle. These have dimensions of an order of 500–
1000 km, and many are the size of Europe. Nevertheless, only
half underlie surface hotspots, and most of these have low CDBS
plume-candidate scores. Montelli et al. (2004) associate six fea-
tures with hotspots: Ascension, the Azores, Canary Islands, Easter
Island, Samoa, and Tahiti; Iceland and Hawaii were specifically
45
pointed out as lacking deep mantle anomalies (in conflict with
the claims of Bijwaard and Spakman, 1999, and Zhao, 2001).
There is little overlap with the plume-candidate list of CDBS
(Iceland, Hawaii, Easter Island, Louisville, Afar, Réunion, and
Tristan). There is also little overlap of either list with candidates
for plume-fed volcanism, based on geometry of volcanic chains
(Wessel and Kroenke, 2000). The most impressive and geo-
chemically distinct hotspots, including Hawaii, Iceland, Yellow-
stone, the Galapagos, Afar, and Réunion, are not evident in deep
P-wave tomography. Most deep low-velocity zones are un-
related to surface hotspots.
TZ thicknesses do not correlate, regionally or globally, with
surface tectonics or with shallow seismic velocity structure.
This suggests an independent upper mantle convection system,
decoupling of transition zone temperatures from deeper tem-
peratures, and no permanent transfer of material across the
transition zone (Anderson, 2001b, 2002a; Gilbert et al., 2003).
In most cases the implied high temperature does not map into
the expected shallowing of the 650 km discontinuity, indicating
that upper mantle thermal anomalies do not extend into the tran-
sition zone (e.g., Gilbert et al., 2003). “High” temperatures may
actually be normal temperatures, representing mantle uncooled
by subduction. In the case of Iceland and Hawaii, there is no
low-velocity anomaly deeper than 650–1000 km; the Yellow-
stone seismic anomaly is even shallower. About thirteen of the
strongest or longest-lived hotspots either have no appreciable
tomographic signatures or have signatures that various authors
agree are confined to the upper mantle (e.g., Ritsema and Allen,
2003; Montelli et al., 2004). It should be pointed out again that
low velocities do not necessarily represent hot mantle. Chem-
istry, mineralogy, volatiles, anelasticity, and anisotropy can also
cause low-velocity zones and thinning of the transition zone.
DISCUSSION
The CDBS criteria (a volcanic chain, an associated flood
basalt, a large swell, a tomographic anomaly at 500 km depth,
and high 3He/4He ratios) are neither thermal in nature nor
unique to the plume hypothesis. They are subjective, and to
some extent circular. About eighteen hotspots have high 3He/4He
ratios in the CDBS scheme of counting, but less than one-third
satisfy other criteria for a deep source, and few have “high”
(compared to MORB) [3He]. The idea that a high 3He/4He ra-
tio requires a deep mantle source has to be reconsidered (see
Meibom and Anderson, 2003). This particular criterion was
based, in part, on the presence of “high” 3He/4He ratios in sam-
ples from Iceland, Yellowstone, and the Galapagos. These were
assumed to have deep mantle sources, which they now appear
not to have.
Sampling a heterogeneous upper mantle is the alternative
to the geochemical isolated reservoir concept and large deep
reservoirs. Recycling (i.e., plate tectonics) introduces material of
diverse size, chemistry, and melting point into the upper mantle
46 D.L. Anderson
from above; migrating ridges sample this diverse material. An
early version of this kind of model is plumbotectonics (Zartman
and Doe, 1981), in which it was suggested that variable-aged
eclogite pods of various sizes could satisfy isotopic constraints,
including inferred isolation times. Eclogite pods, or recycled
oceanic crust, can also lower the melting point and increase the
fertility of the shallow mantle. The average residence time of
recycled material of neutral buoyancy in the upper mantle is
~1 Ga (the time it takes a migrating ridge to resample a portion
of the mantle). Morgan (1971) assumed that this represents the
convective overturn time of the mantle. The chemistry and di-
versity of magmas depends on the history of the sampled mantle,
how it is sampled, and the extent of melting (Anderson, 1998a;
Meibom and Anderson, 2003; Meibom et al., 2003). Sampling
theory and the central limit theorem, combined with recycling,
promise to be a more fruitful way to approach mantle geo-
chemical variations than the standard static reservoir and box
model approaches.
SUMMARY
The study of Courtillot et al. (2003) implies that 86% of
hotspots have, or could have, a shallow origin. Many of these
nonplume melting anomalies have characteristics previously
thought to be diagnostics of plumes. Some hotspot tracks and
individual volcanic islands have been the subjects of detailed
studies that have established their tectonic context and removed
the original evidence, or inference, for their plume origin. Thus
the debate has now been narrowed to a small number of “pri-
mary” hotspots. I extended the CDBS approach by subjecting
hotspot lists to additional tests and the results of special studies
(Appendix 2). I have compared the data with the hypothesis that
the melting anomalies have a shallow plate tectonic explanation,
not necessarily involving high temperatures.
The final results are given in Table 4. The present scheme
agrees with CDBS, and previous workers, regarding a shallow
nonplume or tectonic origin for the Society Islands (Tahiti), the
Marquesas, the Galapagos, Tristan, the Cook-Australs (Mac-
donald), Bouvet, Kerguelen, Cape Verde, and Pitcairn. These
hotspots mostly started on ridges or fracture zones, or both,
although in some cases overprinting has given the impression
that these started midplate. Although these are major features,
they have long been “suspect” (i.e., dubious) hotspots. These are
unlikely to be deep-seated features in spite of having some of
the characteristics expected for (actually, assigned to) plumes.
Special detailed studies on some of these have also come to the
conclusion that they have a shallow explanation (e.g., McNutt
et al., 1997; Dickinson 1998). The Azores, Bouvet, Louisville,
Easter Island, the Marquesas, Tristan, and Réunion have very
high plate scores relative to plume scores (Table 4). Just by
chance, however, many of the previously described nonplume
melting anomalies are likely to occur above low-velocity zones
in the deep mantle (e.g., Zhao, 2001; Montelli et al., 2004). If
deep low-velocity zones are also low-density, they can uplift
and extend the lithosphere—conditions favorable for volcanism
—even if no deep mantle material advects to the surface (as on
the right side of Fig. 1).
There is disagreement about whether Louisville, Samoa,
Réunion, and Easter Island are deep-seated or superficial fea-
tures. Some of these score high, as plume candidates, in the
CDBS study because of arbitrary values of buoyancy flux as-
signed by Sleep (1990) or the large weight given to the 3He/4He
proxy parameter. Samoa, Iceland, and Réunion have been sub-
jected to extensive geophysical and petrological studies. A strong
case has been made that these are lithospheric or upper mantle
features (Natland, 1980; Charvis et al., 1999; de Voogd et al.,
1999; Favela and Anderson, 1999; Gallart et al., 1999; Dieu
et al., 2002). The Louisville chain has no obvious hotspot or
swell at one end nor a large igneous province at the other. It
ranks high partly because it is an age-progressive chain and
partly because the Ontong-Java plateau has been attributed to it,
in spite of the intervention of several arcs and back-arc basins.
Iceland has a number of plume, or ambiguous, indicators
and has some evidence from tomography for plausibly con-
nected tomographic anomalies extending into Bullen’s transi-
tion region (below 400 km depth). These anomalies, however,
appear to terminate at depth. Montelli et al. (2004) suggest that
“vertical leakage” (i.e., a seismological artifact) may have led to
earlier suggestions that a deep plume underlay Iceland. A plate
tectonic model for Iceland has few of the problems associated
with the plume hypothesis (Foulger et al., this volume). Iceland
is ranked high as a plume candidate partly because the extensive
low-velocity zone in the upper 400 km is allowed to count in fa-
vor of elevated temperatures rather than decreased melting point
or a fertile mantle. Neither Iceland nor Hawaii is on the P-wave
primary list of plume candidates (note that they are both in the
northern hemisphere and have somewhat better seismic wave
coverage in the deep mantle than southern hemisphere features).
Afar and Easter Island have some evidence for shallow
thermal anomalies, but these require complex convoluted paths
if they are to join up with broad lower mantle anomalies (Rit-
sema and Allen, 2003). Afar has a high plume score because of
strong evidence for very low velocities in the upper mantle that,
in turn, are consistent with high temperatures. There is equally
strong evidence that the anomaly does not extend deep into the
transition region or the lower mantle. The same is true for Ice-
land (e.g., Foulger et al., 2000). Surprisingly, the plate score for
Hawaii is higher than the plume score, in spite of the lack of an
agreed-upon tectonic mechanism such as a self-perpetuating
volcanic chain (Hieronymus and Bercovici, 1999). Hawaii is
underlain by average-velocity mantle (Best et al., 1974) and
possibly even has a fast anomaly in the lower mantle (Montelli
et al., 2004). The lithosphere under the big island is of normal
thickness, and the heat flow is normal. The volcanic output of
Hawaii has increased dramatically with time, in conflict with the
plume-head-tail model, which predicts the opposite.
Thermal criteria such as heatflow, magma temperatures,
and transition zone thickness are absent in the CDBS voting
 Scoring hotspots: The plume and plate paradigms 47

scheme, but these are the main diagnostic tests for plume (high-
temperature) versus nonplume (athermal) explanations. The term
hotspot is based on the assumption that high magma volumes
and broad swells are proxies for high temperatures. There is very
little evidence that “hotspot” magmas or mantle is substantially
(>150 degrees) hotter than ridge, or even island arc, magma
or mantle.
In summary, most features that have been attributed to hot-
spots or plumes in the mantle do not have attributes that distin-
guish them from tectonically or stress-controlled features or from
passive features in the mantle such as high-fertility patches. On
balance, the polling method, the data, and the physics favor a
shallow (plate tectonic) explanation for both plate boundary and
“midplate” magmatism. Some criteria that have been attributed
to plumes are based on the assumption that prominent features
such as Yellowstone, Iceland, and Hawaii have these attributes,
and therefore they must be attributes of plumes. Ironically, none
of these three has a deep tomographic signature.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This paper is Contribution Number 9074, Division of Geologi-
cal and Planetary Sciences, California Institute of Technology. I
appreciate the electronic and acoustic conversations with Gillian
Foulger, Anders Meibom, Jim Natland, Dean Presnall, and Jerry
Winterer, all of whom have commented extensively and usefully
on earlier versions of these ideas. My ideas about mantle melt-
ing and mantle heterogeneity have matured under their tutelage.
Gillian Foulger stimulated my interest in the end game—suturing
and desuturing of continents. Vincent Courtillot, Gillian Foul-
ger, Warren Hamilton, Jim Natland, Dean Presnall, and John
Tarduno provided useful reviews of the manuscript.
APPENDIX 1. AN EXPANDED HOTSPOT LIST
Following is a more complete list of volcanic centers than
those in the text, including their locations and alternate names.

TABLE A1. HOTSPOT LIST, ALTERNATE NAMES, AND LOCATIONS

Most recent Age of Tectonics
Long. Lat. activity (Ma) Hotspot Location crust (Ma) (See Appendix 2)
–159.8 –18.9 1.2 Aitutaki (Cook) South Pacific >90
42.0 12.0 Afar, Ethiopia Africa Ridge TJ
77.0 –37.0 0.0 Amsterdam–Saint Paul Indian Ocean Ridge Major FZ
Arago-Rurutu
–25.0 –18.0 Arnold
–14.4 –8.0 2.0 Ascension Equatorial Atlantic 7 FZ
Australs-Cook Aitutaki, Macdonald
–28.0 38.0 0.0 Azores North Atlantic 32 Major FZ, TJ
–113.0 27.0 Baja-Guadalupe Mexico Ridge
164.7 –67.4 Balleny Antarctic plate
–60.0 30.0 30.0 Bermuda North Atlantic 117 EDGE?
3.4 –53.9 0.0 Bouvet South Atlantic Ridge RRR
–135.0 53.0 0.0 Bowie seamount, Kodiac seamounts NE Pacific 18 Leaky transform
9.0 –54.0 Cameroon line–Saint Helena Central Atlantic 41 FZ
–17.0 28.0 1.6 Canary Islands North Atlantic 155 FZ
–24.0 15.0 0.0 Cape Verde Off NW Africa 140 EDGE?
164.0 5.0 1.1 Caroline Islands W equatorial Pacific 153
C. Europe Volc. Province Eifel
80.0 –35.0 Christmas S Indian Ocean Ridge
–9.0 –8.0 Circe-Ascension Equatorial Atlantic Ridge FZ
–130.0 46.0 0.1 Cobb NE Pacific 4
44.0 –12.0 0.0 Comores Islands N of Madagascar 128
Cook-Australs Aitutaki
–51.5 36.5 73.0 Corner North Atlantic 98
45.0 –46.3 Crozet–Prince Edward SW Indian Ocean 80
24.0 13.0 Darfur Africa
0.0 –42.0 Discovery South Atlantic FZ
34.0 6.0 East Africa Africa
143.0 –38.0 East Australia Australia
–119.3 –27.0 0.1 Easter SE Pacific Ridge (4.5 Ma) Easter FZ
6.9 50.2 Eifel Europe
167.0 –78.0 Erebus–Ross Sea Antarctica Rift
–32.0 –4.0 Fernando do Norona Off NE South America EDGE, 3 FZ
–115.0 –26.0 0.1 Foundation seamounts S central Pacific Ridge
–86.2 0.8 0.0 Galapagos E equatorial Pacific Near ridge Fragmentation
(continued)
 TABLE A1. Continued
Most recent Age of Tectonics
Long. Lat. activity (Ma) Hotspot Location crust (Ma) (See Appendix 2)
–10.0 –40.0 2.6 Gough South Atlantic Tristan chain
28.0 30.0 Great Meteor North Atlantic 80
–118.3 29.0 Guadalupe Mexico Ridge Abandoned ridge
Gulf of Alaska NE Pacific
–155.3 18.9 0.0 Hawaii Central Pacific 93
0.0 Heard-Kerguelen
6.0 23.0 Hoggar Mountains, Algeria Africa
–219.0 –54.0 Hollister Ridge S of Eltanin FZ
–20.0 64.0 Iceland North Atlantic Ridge
–8.0 71.0 Jan Mayen Arctic Ocean Ridge Microcontinent
231.0 45.0 Juan de Fuca Pacific NW Dying ridge
–79.0 –34.0 Juan Fernandez SE Pacific FZ, tear?
63.0 –49.0 Kerguelen S Indian Ocean 118 Microcontinent, shear
Kodiak-Bowie
159.1 –31.2 Lord Howe Off East Australia
–138.2 –50.4 0.5 Louisville SW Pacific 85 Eltanin FZ system
–140.3 –29.0 0.0 Macdonald Australs-Cook 42
–17.0 33.0 1.0 Madeira North Atlantic 129 EDGE
Manus back-arc basin Based only on helium
37.8 –46.9 Marion S of Madagascar Ridge
–138.5 –10.8 0.5 Marquesas Islands S Central Pacific 63
–153.5 –21.0 Marshall-Gilbert Islands SW Pacific
–29.0 –21.0 Marten Vaz Off E South America EDGE
Mauritius Indian Ocean 59 Old ridge/TF
–149.5 –17.6 0.0 Mehetia–Society Islands
1.0 –52.0 Meteor South Atlantic
167.0 –78.0 Mount Erebus Antarctica Rift
28.0 –32.0 85.0 New England NW Atlantic 95 FZ
–130.1 –24.1 1.0 Pitcairn (unnamed seamount) SW Pacific 23
38.0 –47.0 0.0 Prince Edward
–159.0 –21.5 1.1 Rarotonga (Cook) South Pacific >90
–104.1 36.4 Raton, New Mexico (GVP) New Mexico Shear zone
Revillagigedo-Socorro
55.7 –21.2 0.0 Réunion (Fournaise) (GVP) Indian Ocean 64
63.5 –19.6 1.5 Rodriguez Indian Ocean 10.6
168.0 –77.0 0.0 Ross Sea Antarctica Rift
–150.8 –23.4 0.2 Rurutu (Arago seamount)
–109.0 –27.0 1.9 Sala y Gomez Easter chain
–169.6 –14.2 Samoa SW Pacific 100
–80.1 –26.3 San Felix SE Pacific Tear
–117.5 16.9 0.0 Shimada seamount N Central Pacific 20 Isolated
6.0 –52.0 Shona South Atlantic Ridge Ridge jump
–148.0 –18.0 0.0 Society Islands Mehetia
–111.0 19.0 Socorro East Pacific Abandoned ridge
–10.0 –17.0 13.0 Saint Helena Central Atlantic 41 Leaky FZ
77.5 –38.7 0.0 Saint Paul Island (GVP) and Amsterdam Indian Ocean 4
–149.5 –17.6 0.0 Society Islands (Mehetia) SW Pacific 71
0.6 Tahiti–Iti 66
156.5 –38.8 Tasmantid SW Pacific
17.0 21.0 Tibesti, Chad Africa
–29.3 –20.5 1.5 Trinidade-Marten Off E South America 90
–12.3 –37.1 0.1 Tristan da Cunha South Atlantic Near ridge
16.0 –32.0 Vema seamount SW Africa
–110.7 44.4 Yellowstone NW USA
Notes: Abbreviations: TJ—triple junction; FZ—fracture zone; EDGE—edge-induced gyres and eddies; RRR—ridge-ridge-ridge TJ. TF—trans-
form fault.
For definitions of terms used, see Appendix 2, section titled “Abbreviations and Definitions.”
 Scoring hotspots: The plume and plate paradigms
APPENDIX 2: THE PLATE MODEL:
MANY DISTINCT TYPES OF HOTSPOTS
Courtillot et al. (2003) define three distinct types of hot-
spots, assuming that they all have a fluid dynamic explanation
and originate at various depths in the mantle. Favela and An-
derson (1999) define a variety of hotspots based on tectonic
criteria—abandoned ridges, leaky transform faults, tears and
rips in plates because of changes in dips and strikes of nearby
subduction zones, and so on. In all cases, an element of exten-
sion is implied. Few of the features that have been called “hot-
spots” or “hotspot tracks” have characteristics expected of
plumes. A glossary of the tectonic types of hotspots is given at
the end of this section. A large number of special studies have
clarified the roles of tectonics and shallow processes with regard
to the locations, temperatures, and productivities of so-called
hotspots (e.g., Best et al., 1974; Hadley et al., 1976; Natland,
1980; Anderson et al., 1992a,b; Burke, 1996; McNutt et al.,
1997; Wessel and Kroenke, 1997; Czamanske et al., 1998; Dick-
inson, 1998; Baksi, 1999; de Voogd et al., 1999; Favela and
Anderson, 1999; Clouard and Bonneville, 2001; Koppers et al.,
2001; Christiansen et al., 2002; Dieu et al., 2002; Natland and
Anderson, 2002; Stein and Stein, 2002; Humphreys et al., 2003;
Ritsema and Allen, 2003; Natland and Winterer, this volume;
Presnall and Gudfinnsson, this volume). Few “hotspots” are
fixed or have thermal swells, tomographic anomalies, high heat-
flow, or high-temperature magmas compared to those expected
for normal plate tectonics.
The Plate Model
The papers just cited form the observational backbone of
what I call the plate model. The elements of the plate model, and
the contrasts with the plume model, are illustrated in Figure 1.
The theoretical elements include irreversible chemical stratifi-
cation of the mantle (Anderson, 1989, 2002a,c), top-down self-
organization of the plates (Anderson, 2001a,b, 2002d), sampling
theory, distributed components rather than deep reservoirs
(Meibom and Anderson, 2003), the effect of pressure on ther-
mal properties (Anderson, 1989, 2004), shallow return flow,
self-perpetuating volcanic chains (Hieronymus and Bercovici,
1999), the end game (Foulger et al., this volume), variable fer-
tility, and the migration of ridges and trenches (Hamilton, 2002).
This geodynamical model has also been called “platonics” to
distinguish it from the kinematic theory of rigid plate tectonics
and to emphasize its shallow and ephemeral nature (Anderson,
2002c). Ephemeral plates and incipient and reactivated plate
boundaries are important concepts.
In the plate model, the stress and fabric of the plate, not
temperature, control the location of volcanism. The volume of
magmatism is controlled by the fertility (composition, volatile
content, and solidus) of the mantle, small-scale convection and
focusing, the thickness of the plate, the stress state of the plate,
and, to a lesser extent, the potential temperature. Chemical ho-
49
mogeneity (of magmas) reflects the sampling process, not large-
scale convective mixing of the solid mantle. In the plate model
it is assumed that the asthenosphere is near or above the melt-
ing point and that small changes in temperature or composition
can greatly change the amount of melt. Rates of magmatism de-
pend mainly on the stress history of the plate, on focusing, and on
ponding (underplating) prior to extension. In contrast to plumes,
plate-induced thermal variations are large in extent and moder-
ate in amplitude. Chemical, fertility, and solidus variations (pri-
marily due to recycling; see Fig. 1) and stress, on the other hand,
can be local and highly variable on small spatial and temporal
scales. Lateral flow of the asthenosphere, or asthenospheric
melts, is implied by plate tectonics with shallow return flow and
a low-viscosity asthenospheric channel. The asthenosphere is
replenished, in the plate model, via subduction zones, the man-
tle wedge, delamination, shallow return flow, and passive up-
welling, not via narrow plumes from the deep mantle. Ridges
are unlikely to be stationary. It is energetically more favorable
for a ridge to migrate over fresh mantle, which is likely to be
heterogeneous, than to have that mantle transport itself to a fixed
ridge or to have long-distance porous flow of magma.
Bathymetry derived from satellite-based altimetry (Smith
and Sandwell, 1997) provides information about seafloor fabric
and seamount chains and clusters—and the tectonic context of
hotspots—that was not available to Jason Morgan when he pro-
posed mantle plumes. Natland and Winterer (this volume) sum-
marize the situation thus:
The Smith-Sandwell chart reveals thousands of seamounts in the Pa-
cific arranged in arrays of alignments, non-alignments and orientations
that are far from being regularly distributed. The Pacific plate contains
huge plateaus without trailing seamounts; trains of seamounts that have
no affiliated plateaus; trains that changed volume and rates of propa-
gation through time; trains that contain curving, splayed, imbricate and
cross-trend ridges; and trains that terminate at transform faults. It con-
tains huge clusters of seamounts that are not trains at all. Only a few of
them are grouped in the linear, concentric island chains so central to the
plume hypothesis and all of these are young. The Pacific was very dif-
ferent during the Mesozoic. The idea that modern linear island chains
alone provide an adequate picture of mantle geodynamics beneath the
plate is a misapprehension.
This summation provides additional support for the multi-
parameter approach of Courtillot et al. (2003).
There is little similarity among the various features that
have been called hotspot tracks. There are examples of volcan-
ism related to leaky transforms, ridge jumps, abandoned ridges,
ridge propagators, and small-scale convection that could be con-
fused with hotspot tracks. In some cases isolated features, some
volcanic, have been lumped together and called a track (e.g., see
Morgan, 1981). If the volcanic outputs are relatively small, we can
often see clear tectonic relationships. With larger volume outputs
the underlying tectonic context is often not clear, and in some
places volcanic chains or dikes cut across tectonic fabrics. One
can, however, apparently maintain age progression (away from
the tip of a crack) even after a substantial magma production rate
50 D.L. Anderson
is reached (Hieronymus and Bercovici, 1999). The location and
volume output of melting anomalies appear to be controlled by
some convolution of the plate fabric, stress, and fertility of the
underlying mantle. On the other hand, high temperature and a
deep, completely fluid dynamic explanation is usually assumed
when discussing volcanic chains. The only question, in some
studies, is “How deep is the thermal instability?”
The concentration of hotspots near current and former plate
boundaries, edges of cratons, and suture zones is expected in
the plate hypothesis. Important questions, unaddressed here, are
whether preheating by a plume head is required for continental
breakup (Courtillot et al., 1999) and whether incipient ridges at
continental margins and sutures are intrinsically more produc-
tive than mature or steady-state ridges (King and Anderson,
1995, 1998; Meibom and Anderson, 2003; Foulger et al., this
volume). The stress valve mechanism appears to be intrinsically
better suited than the plume model for explaining brief episodes
of volcanism such as occur at large igneous provinces, along
short volcanic chains, and along the Hawaiian chain. Some case
studies are discussed later.
The Easter “hotline” exhibits bilateral age progressions. It
forms the southern boundary of the Easter microplate and lies
along the Easter fracture zone. It does not have a distinct swell.
The Easter hotline is part of the Tuamoto–Pitcairn–Easter–Sala
y Gomez tectonic trend and is parallel to the Samoa–Cook–
Austral–Foundation–Juan Fernandez trend. Both are apparently
related to a change in Pacific plate stress or motion and the for-
mation of the Easter and Juan Fernandez microplates (Mam-
merickx, 1992). These trends extend from the Tonga trench to the
Chile trench, crossing the East Pacific Rise near the microplates.
One interpretation is that they are incipient plate boundaries.
Réunion appears to be a large seamount on a reactivated
ridge-transform boundary between two parallel transform faults
(Nercessian et al., 1996; Charvis et al., 1999; de Voogd et al.,
1999; Gallart et al., 1999), not a major Hawaii-type edifice. There
is no flexural moat surrounding the island. The size of the Ré-
union volcanic construct has been overestimated by a large factor
because it was erroneously assumed that there was a large amount
of hidden matter (flexure and underplating). There is no Hawaii-
or Louisville-type hotspot track, and the relation to Deccan
volcanism and other Indian Ocean islands is highly questionable
(Burke, 1996; Sheth, 2000). Other melting anomalies (Shimada,
Mauritius, Guadalupe, and others; see Appendix 1) are also on
or near abandoned ridges, often at ridge-transform intersections.
With the new volume estimates for Réunion, and the loss of
both a plausible track and an associated large igneous province
(Burke, 1996; Sheth, 2000) it should be downgraded consider-
ably from the high value assigned to it by CDBS (see Table 2).
Tomographic maps show a remarkable noncorrelation of
slow regions and hotspots. In particular, Hawaii, the Galapagos,
Réunion, Bouvet, Louisville, Easter Island, Cape Verde, Samoa,
Tristan, and Tahiti are above high-velocity or average regions
of the upper 100–300 km of the mantle. This is inconsistent with
the presence of either a plume head or the spreading out of an
active upwelling under the plate. The Afar–East African Rift re-
gion has low upper mantle velocities, but these do not continue
into the lower mantle. Some of the south Pacific hotspots and
those near west Africa are above or nearly above broad low-
velocity zones at the top of the lower mantle. Hawaii, Iceland,
Yellowstone, and the Galapagos are not connected to P-wave
low-velocity zones in the lower mantle (Bullen’s region D).
Bowie, eastern Australia, Eifel, Etna, Iceland, the Cocos, the
Galapagos, and Juan de Fuca–Cobb have inferred anomalies
only in the upper mantle (Montelli et al., 2004). Cobb, Réunion,
and Bermuda have low-velocity zones at some depths in the
lower mantle, in some tomographic models. Most of these re-
gions have fairly straightforward tectonic explanations for their
volcanism.
Large igneous provinces are a key parameter of the reason-
ing of CBDS; essentially all primary hotspots are assigned to
a large igneous province (including Hawaii and Louisville).
Most large igneous provinces, however, have no obvious or
plausible trail (“hotspot track,” in plume jargon). There are ap-
proximately twenty large igneous provinces in the recent geo-
logical record. On the continents these are on ancient sutures and
continental margins; in the oceans they tend to be associated
with triple junctions, possibly new and migrating ones. Ignoring
the external impact hypotheses, the alternates to plume heads for
large igneous provinces involve stress, mantle fertility, insula-
tion, corner flow, start-up transients, tectonics, fabric, focusing,
and precursory ponding rather than high temperatures or an as-
sociated large thermal uplift. A possible explanation for a large
igneous province is that it is ponded magma from the astheno-
sphere, released when buoyancy or pressure gets too high or the
stress in the plate allows eruption. Although magmas are hot,
these mechanisms are basically athermal in nature. Ponding
and underplating (and lateral transport of asthenosphere) can
occur with or without plumes. Similar explanations have been
proposed for large silicic eruptions, kimberlites, and rapid de-
watering events in the crust. A lithospheric stress valve may be
in operation.
Finally, a point about “fixity,” a key concept in the devel-
opment of the plume hypothesis that does not arise in the plate
model. When calculating the motions of plates and plate bound-
aries it is sometimes convenient to have a reference point. Var-
ious plate reconstructions in the past have used, as an arbitrary
convenient “fixed” reference point, Tristan, Africa, South Amer-
ica, and Antarctica (see Hamilton, 2002; Glen, this volume).
This does not imply that these arbitrary reference points are
actually stationary with respect to the mantle. More recently,
Hawaii has been taken as a convenient fixed point. That this can
be done has been used by some authors as evidence that deep
plumes exist, e.g., that the “Hawaiian volcanic anomaly has
remained stationary for tens of My” (DePaolo and Manga, 2003).
A single reference point cannot be used in this way. It is fixed
only by definition and convention.
 Scoring hotspots: The plume and plate paradigms
Abbreviations and Definitions
The tectonic context of many hotspots is given in the tables.
The notation is as follows:
• RRR TJ—ridge-ridge-ridge triple junction
• TF—transform fault
• FZ—fracture zone
• EDGE—edge-induced gyres and eddies—the convection
induced by lateral temperature gradients at boundaries of
cratons, continents, transform faults, and so on
• Tear—a fracture induced by a change in dip at a trench (e.g.,
Samoa, Juan Fernandez, San Felix)
• Fragmentation—a plate’s experiencing divergent pulls be-
cause of changes in strike of nearby trenches (e.g., the
Galapagos)
• Ridge—very young crust
• Leaky transform—a transform fault that is experiencing
later extension or is being breached by buoyant magmas
• Abandoned ridge and ridge jump—the result of a ridge jump
or plate reorganization (e.g., Guadalupe, Réunion)
• Based only on helium—plumes that have been identified
by geochemistry alone (assuming that normal mantle is
homogeneous)
• Microcontinent—volcanism built on a continental fragment
• Shear—volcanism related to a preexisting shear zone
Additional cryptic remarks in the tables are these:
• No spot—a hotspot has been inferred at the end of a vol-
canic chain, but there is no swell or volcanism at that point.
• Diffuse—localized deformation or volcanism is absent.
• Incipient plate boundary—identifies the site of a future ridge,
trench, or transform fault (easier to identify in hindsight).
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