Seagoing Cruise MV1203 to the Walvis Ridge seamount trail sailed in February-March 2012 and mapped 49 seamounts and placed in total 62 dredges, of which 47 contained relatively fresh basaltic rocks. Project Overview The Walvis Ridge is a hotspot-related seamount trail in the South Atlantic, and one of the most striking seafloor features on the African plate. The old end of the trail, beginning...
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IODP Expedition 330 to the Louisville Seamount Trail drilled five underwater volcanoes off the NE coast of New Zealand. One hypothesis states that these volcanoes formed above a narrow plume of hot mantle rising from a position deep in the Earth’s mantle. For decades scientists assumed these mantle plumes remain anchored there for tens of millions years, but there is mounting evidence that...
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IODP Expedition 324 to Shatsky Rise, located ~1500 km east of Japan, aimed to drill the only large oceanic plateau that formed during a time of magnetic reversals. This provides a unique situation whereby we understand the intimate relation of the Shatsky Rise to the ridge tectonics of ~140 million years ago very well. The allows us to test whether a plume or plate-tectonic processes are the main...
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