The key to the hot spots of illuminated volcanoes

2008/04/01 Elhuyar Zientzia Iturria: Elhuyar aldizkaria

• Geologia

The University of Chicago has developed a mathematical model of an experiment that mimics hot material outcrops at hot spots on Earth, through analysis techniques and common numbers. They also believe that the mathematical model can extend to the phenomenon that occurs on Earth.

To imitate the phenomenon of hot spots, in 1999, Anne Davaille of the University of Paris placed two liquids of different density on a boat. Since the liquids did not have the same density, they did not mix, but when heating the lower one, the densest one, he observed how a kind of cone formed at the boundary between the two liquids and finally how a winding of the denser liquid reached the surface of the liquid on top, and how it remained a relatively long time.

They believe that a similar process occurs in the mantle of Earth. What was a steak in the experiment are the growing feathers on Earth, that is, the liquid columns that cross the solid mantle. The part of the lithosphere located on one of these columns usually has a great volcanic activity, which is known as hot spot. As in the experiment, on Earth the growing feathers remain quite long.