摘要
It is forty years since J. Tuzo Wilson first suggested that the Hawaiian Islands were produced by the oceanic lithosphere moving over a stationary ＂hotspot＂ in the mantle, and thirty years since W. Jason Morgan suggested that Wilson＇s hotspots are thermal plumes in the Earth＇s mantle, and that they may play an important role in convection. Flood basalts, volcanic continental margins, large oceanic plateaus and age-progressive aseismic ridges, along with smaller-volume seamount and ocean-island chains, have all been attributed to mantle plumes.
