EVERYDAY SCIENCE

Detailed explanation-1: -The melted rock, known as magma, often pushes through cracks in the crust to form volcanoes. Hot spot volcanism is unique because it does not occur at the boundaries of Earth’s tectonic plates, where all other volcanism occurs. Instead it occurs at abnormally hot centers known as mantle plumes.

Detailed explanation-2: -A chain of volcanoes (hotspot track) forms as a tectonic plate moves over a plume of hot mantle material (hotspot) rising from deep within the Earth.

Detailed explanation-3: -High heat and lower pressure at the base of the lithosphere (tectonic plate) facilitates melting of the rock. This melt, called magma, rises through cracks and erupts to form volcanoes. As the tectonic plate moves over the stationary hot spot, the volcanoes are rafted away and new ones form in their place.

Detailed explanation-4: -On land, volcanoes form when one tectonic plate moves under another. Usually a thin, heavy oceanic plate subducts, or moves under, a thicker continental plate. When this happens, the ocean plate sinks into the mantle.

Detailed explanation-5: -These so-called “hotspot” volcanoes are created when a narrow stream of hot mantle rises up from deep inside the earth and melts a hole in the plate so that the magma can ooze upward. The Hawaiian islands, for example, are a result of hotspot volcano formations near the center of the giant Pacific plate.