Collaborative Research: Investigating Mantle Source Reservoirs and Cretaceous Plate Motions Recorded by Ancient Mid-Pacific Oceanic Rises and Seamount Tracks

This award is funded in whole or in part under the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 (Public Law 117-2).

Earth’s surface is composed of numerous rigid ‘plates’ that move with the flow of a highly viscous interior mantle. Individual plate movements can be determined if their past motions are compared to a fixed source on Earth, such as so-called “mantle hotspots”. These hotspots are generated by mantle plumes, large thermo-chemical uprisings of material that originate on or near the core-mantle boundary. These upwellings of hot material can produce volcanism on Earth’s surface that remains relatively stationary while plates move over them, generating chains of compositionally distinct volcanoes that are progressively older the further they are from the hotspot. This work, through tracing ages, compositions, and morphologies of several poorly-documented volcanic chains, seeks to better understand the timing and drivers of global scale plate reorganization events that took place in the Mid-Cretaceous (120-80 Ma). The target locations include the Liliuokalani Ridge, Hess Rise and Mid-Pacific Mountains in the Central Pacific region. The team will be able to test whether the features were built by mantle plumes that are currently underlying the Northern French Polynesia region. The combined age and chemistry results will then be used to constrain the timing of a major plate reorganization event at ca. 100 Ma. This project supports three early-career scientists, two PhD, and one MSc student. In addition, the seagoing expedition will include eight undergraduate research participants from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas and California State University, Long Beach.


The project involves a 31-day seagoing expedition to dredge seamounts, ridges and rises within and near Hess Rise and the Mid-Pacific Mountains. In addition, the team will analyze basalts recovered on NOAA-Ocean Exploration and Research expeditions from Karin Ridge and samples from an upcoming E/V Nautilus expedition to the Liliuokalani Seamounts. Onshore work will include obtaining 40Ar/39Ar age determinations and geochemical tracers (major and trace elements; Sr-Nd-Pb-Hf isotopes) from representative lava flows. These new samples and comprehensive datasets will allow for the testing of the following hypotheses: H1) The Liliuokalani Seamounts and Hess Rise were formed by the Marquesas Mantle Plume. H2) The Pitcairn Mantle Plume is the primary source of the Karin Ridge and Mid-Pacific Mountains. H3) The Mid-Pacific Mountains record the timing and orientation of Cretaceous plate motion changes. H4) The structure of the Mid-Pacific Mountains and Hess Rise are controlled by plume – (distal) ridge interaction through the generation of asthenospheric melt channels. Testing these hypotheses will lead to an improved understanding of mantle plume dynamics and ‘bottom-up’ controls on oceanic geomorphology and large igneous province construction. Furthermore, mapping the long-lived expressions of mantle plumes allows for unparalleled insight into the mantle source reservoirs that feed hotspot volcanism. The combination of geo-chronology, chemistry and morphology will allow for a significantly improved Pacific absolute plate motion model during the Cretaceous Normal Superchron (122-83 Ma).

This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.

Award Number: 2535219
Principal Investigator: Andrea Balbas
Funds Obligated: $123,726
State: OR