Hawaii

The Moving Mantle Beneath Hawaii: A New Look at an Old Bend

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The Hawaiian–Emperor Bend (HEB) has long been a geological Rosetta Stone for probing the link between plate tectonics and mantle dynamics. In a compelling new study in PNAS, Zhang and Hu (2025) revisit this classic problem with global mantle convection models constrained by plate reconstructions. They reveal that in addition to the widely accepted southward … Read more…

Nature Geoscience: Dynamics of the abrupt change in Pacific Plate motion around 50 million years ago

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A drastic change in plate tectonics and mantle convection occurred around 50 Ma as exemplified by the prominent Hawaiian– Emperor Bend. Both an abrupt Pacific Plate motion change and a change in mantle plume dynamics have been proposed to account for the Hawaiian–Emperor Bend, but debates surround the relative contribution of the two mechanisms. Here … Read more…