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What is this site about? How do I use it?

This site is for those who are interested in the origin of "hot spots", or melting anomalies.

For over 30 years the interrelated, but usually viewed as independent, plate tectonic and plume theories have been the two most important paradigms in the solid Earth sciences. The plume theory, invoked to explain “hot spot” or “anomalous” volcanism, is currently under vigorous debate. The primary objective of www.mantleplumes.org is to encourage this discussion by making a broad suite of relevant information easily available to students, specialists in all branches of the Earth sciences, and lay people.

www.mantleplumes.org is continually growing. As each new item is added to the site, an anouncement is placed at the top of the "Notice Board" in the centre of the white area of the home page. Older notices are removed from the bottom as new ones are added to the top. Links to the older articles are to be found under the relevant subject groupings displayed elsewhere on the home page.

Materials available include technical tutorials and perspectives on a wide variety of topics, divided into four main categories:

  1. Mechanisms:–links along the top: Technical contributions describing genesis models for “hot spot” volcanism, e.g., plate-tectonic processes and “EDGE” convection,
  2. Localities:–pull-down menu: Technical contributions discussing particular “hot spots” and large igneous provinces such as Iceland, Samoa and the Deccan Traps,
  3. Generic:–list of links at left: Technical contributions discussing issues of general relevance to the origin of “hot spot” volcanism, e.g., convection, noble gases and seismology, and
  4. Other resources:–icons on home page: Databases, recent abstracts, preprints, offprints, bibliographies, student work, Powerpoint presentations, comments and letters, information on recent relevant conferences, debating materials, historical papers, a blog of recent papers and both technical and non-technical news articles. Useful resources also include the books:
At the time of writing over 700 scientists have contributed to the website. We welcome contributions from interested parties and feedback from visitors.

See also “About this site”.

Don L. Anderson & Gillian R. Foulger
6th March, 2015

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