Roadmap to www.mantleplumes.org

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.

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

Mechanisms: Technical contributions describing genesis models for “hot spot” volcanism, e.g., plate-tectonic processes and “EDGE” convection ("tab" links immediately beneath title banner),
Localities: Technical contributions discussing particular “hot spots” and large igneous provinces such as Iceland, Samoa and the Deccan Traps (pull-down menu and links above the "notice board"),
Generic: Technical contributions discussing issues of general relevance to the origin of “hot spot” volcanism, e.g., convection, noble gases and seismology (links in the vertical red band at left), and
Other resources: 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. A particularly substantial element is an electronic version of the forthcoming book "Plates, plumes, and paradigms", Geological Society of America Special Paper 388, currently in press. This book comprises 47 peer-reviewed scholarly articles and over 100 colour maps and figures covering all aspects of the subject. (links in the white area of the home page).