Rodriguez, Darwin, Amsterdam, ..., A second type of Hotspot Island

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Abstract
Darwin and Wolf Islands are about 200 km north of the main group of Galapagos Islands and are aligned on a 315° trend. Rodriguez Island is on a long 090° trending ridge about 900 km east of Reunion Island. These trends are very different from the fracture zone or hotspot trends in these areas. The Reykjanes ridge has been interpreted as the result of channeled asthenosphere flow from the Iceland hotspot (which produces new asthenosphere) down the rise axis (where asthenosphere is converted into lithosphere). We propose similar channeling for hotspots not exactly on a rise crest—a ‘pipeline’ from a hotspot to a nearby rise crest, with this second type of island forming at the intersection of the rise and pipeline. Predicted trends for these features may be found by vector addition of the absolute motion of a plate over a hotspot and the relative motion of a rise crest away from a plate.