Related Experiment Video
Updated: Nov 25, 2025

Data Processing Methods for 3D Seismic Imaging of Subsurface Volcanoes: Applications to the Tarim Flood Basalt
Published on: August 7, 2017
Intraplate volcanism triggered by bursts in slab flux
Ben R Mather1,2, R Dietmar Müller3, Maria Seton3
1EarthByte Group, School of Geoscience, The University of Sydney, Sydney, NSW 2006, Australia. ben.mather@sydney.edu.au.
Abstract:
Long-lived, widespread intraplate volcanism without age progression is one of the most controversial features of plate tectonics. Previously proposed edge-driven convection, asthenospheric shear, and lithospheric detachment fail to explain the ~5000-km-wide intraplate volcanic province from eastern Australia to Zealandia. We model the subducted slab volume over 100 million years and find that slab flux drives volcanic eruption frequency, indicating stimulation of an enriched mantle transition zone reservoir. Volcanic isotope geochemistry allows us to distinguish a high-μ (HIMU) reservoir [>1 billion years (Ga) old] in the slab-poor south, from a northern EM1/EM2 reservoir, reflecting a more recent voluminous influx of oceanic lithosphere into the mantle transition zone. We provide a unified theory linking plate boundary and slab volume reconstructions to upper mantle reservoirs and intraplate volcano geochemistry.
Related Concept Videos
Isothermal Processes
An ideal gas can also undergo isothermal expansion or compression.
For example, consider 1 mole of an ideal gas inside an isolated cylinder at initial volume V...
Phase Transitions: Sublimation and Deposition
Magnetic Flux
Suppose a surface is divided into elements of area dA. For each element, the component of the magnetic field that is normal to the...
Electric Flux
Sulfur Assimilation
Fusion of Secretory Vesicles with the Plasma Membrane
In 1993, Jim Rothman proposed that the antiparallel pairing of vesicular and transmembrane SNAREs, or...

