How is it possible for a hot spot like the one under Hawaii to remain stable and in one position for millions of years given the supposedconvecting and unstable nature of the mantle ?

rocky Thomas Fosbury

Mr. Fosbury,

You've asked a pretty difficult question, and one that I don't think anyone has a good answer for yet. Perhaps the source for hotspots (heat and/or magma) is beneath any convection cells, and is strong enough to "burn" through without being deflected? Some have argued for hotspots to be perturbations in the core-mantle boundary. One could argue that perhaps hotspots are bent by the convecting mantle "wind" although a recent study has shown that the world's hotspots have not moved relative to each other as far back in geologic history that we can tell. Perhaps hotspots occur at places where neighboring convection cells abut one another, and the positions of these cells has been constant?

As you can tell I don't have a very good answer for you, and although I am certainly not an expert on the subject I think I can safely say that this is one of the still-unsolved details of plate tectonics.

Sincerely,

Scott Rowland, University of Hawaii 

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