A special session will be held during the 2011 Fall AGU Meeting on the Studies of Seamount Trails. We invite contributions that focus on seamount research ranging from global plate and hotspot motion to mantle flow and to the geochemical evolution of mantle plumes. Authors in this session also are encouraged to submit relevant papers to a related G3 Special Theme that seeks to bring together the latest studies on the globally most prominent seamount trails based on (but not limited to) recent results from IODP Expedition 330 to the Louisville seamount trail.

V35: Seamount Trails: Implications for Global Plate and Hotspot Motion, Mantle Flow and the Geochemical Evolution of Mantle Plumes

Seamount trails are fundamental to our understanding of mantle geodynamics and geochemistry. Simple concepts of stationary hotspots with consequences to absolute plate motion have given way to more sophisticated ideas that consider hotspot motion, offering constraints on mantle flow as well as global plate and hotspot motion. Seamount geochemical data have been fundamental to understanding mantle geochemistry and the melting processes that create them. This session welcomes contributions on a wide range of observational and modeling approaches that provide new insights to the debates on mantle plumes, geodynamics, plate tectonics and mantle geochemistry. 

Invited Speakers: Jeff Gee (Scripps Institution of Oceanography), Matt Jackson (Boston University), Paul Wessel (University of Hawaii), Bernhard Steinberger (GFZ Potsdam, Germany)

Sponsor: Volcanology, Geochemistry, and Petrology (V)
Co-Sponsor(s): Study of Earth's Deep Interior (DI), Geomagnetism and Paleomagnetism (GP), Seismology (S), Tectonophysics (T)

Session link: http://sites.agu.org/fallmeeting/scientific-program/session-search/884

Conveners:
Anthony Koppers (Oregon State University, akoppers@coas.oregonstate.edu)
Cornelia Class (Lamont Doherty Earth Observatory, class@ldeo.columbia.edu)
Hubert Staudigel (Scripps Institution of Oceanography, hstaudig@ucsd.edu)