Chengzu Wang, Richard G. Gordon*, and Tuo Zhang

It is widely believed that groups of hotspots in different regions of the world are in relative motion at rates of 10 to 30 mm a–1 or more. Here we present a new method for analyzing geologically current motion between groups of hotspots beneath different plates. In an inversion of 56 globally distributed, equally weighted trends of hotspot tracks, the dispersion is dominated by differences in trend between different plates rather than differences within plates. Nonetheless the rate of hotspot motion perpendicular to the direction of absolute plate motion, vperp, differs significantly from zero for only three of ten plates and then by merely 0.3 to 1.4 mm a–1. The global mean upper bound on |vperp| is 3.2 ±2.7 mm a–1. Therefore, hotspots move slowly and can be used to define a global reference frame for plate motions.

Link: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/2017GL073430/full

DOI: 10.1002/2017GL073430