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Examples include the Hawaii, Iceland, and Yellowstone hotspots. A hotspot's position on the Earth's surface is independent of tectonic plate boundaries, and so hotspots may create a chain of volcanoes as the plates move above them. There are two hypotheses that attempt to explain their origins.
Ten hotspots were originally identified by Myer; [1] the current 36 used to cover more than 15.7% of all the land but have lost around 85% of their area. [8] This loss of habitat is why approximately 60% of the world's terrestrial life lives on only 2.4% of the land surface area.
The hotspot's most recent caldera-forming supereruption, known as the Lava Creek Eruption, took place 640,000 years ago and created the Lava Creek Tuff, and the most recent Yellowstone Caldera. The Yellowstone hotspot is one of a few volcanic hotspots underlying the North American tectonic plate; another example is the Anahim hotspot.
[27]: 2321 For example, the decline of sea ice in the Arctic has been accelerating during the early twenty‐first century, with a decline rate of 4.7% per decade (it has declined over 50% since the first satellite records). [28] [29] [30] One well known example of a species affected is the polar bear, whose habitat in the Arctic is threatened ...
The biodiversity of Assam, a state in North-East India, makes it a biological hotspot with many rare and endemic plant and animal species. The greatest success in recent years has been the conservation of the Indian rhinoceros at the Kaziranga National Park , but a rapid increase in human population in Assam threatens many plants and animals ...
Where hotspots are developed beneath the continents the products are different, as the mantle-derived magmas cause melting of the continental crust, forming granitic magmas that reach the surface as rhyolites. The Yellowstone hotspot is an example of continental hotspot magmatism, which also displays time-progressive shifts in magmatic activity.
There is an ongoing discussion about whether the hotspot is caused by a deep mantle plume or originates at a much shallower depth. [3] Recently, seismic tomography studies have found seismic wave speed anomalies under Iceland, consistent with a hot conduit 100 km (62 mi) across that extends to the lower mantle.
The track of this hot spot starts in the west and sweeps up to Yellowstone National Park. The steaming fumaroles and explosive geysers are ample evidence of a concentration of heat beneath the surface. The hotspot is stationary, but the North American plate is moving over it, creating a superb record of the rate and direction of plate motion. [4]