The Bowie hotspot is a

volcanic A volcano is a rupture in the crust of a planetary-mass object, such as Earth, that allows hot lava, volcanic ash, and gases to escape from a magma chamber below the surface. On Earth, volcanoes are most often found where tectonic plates a ...

hotspot, located west of

Haida Gwaii Haida Gwaii (; hai, X̱aaydag̱a Gwaay.yaay / , literally "Islands of the Haida people") is an archipelago located between off the northern Pacific coast of Canada. The islands are separated from the mainland to the east by the shallow Heca ...

in the

Pacific Ocean The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest of Earth's five oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Southern Ocean (or, depending on definition, to Antarctica) in the south, and is bounded by the contin ...

. Almost all

magma Magma () is the molten or semi-molten natural material from which all igneous rocks are formed. Magma is found beneath the surface of the Earth, and evidence of magmatism has also been discovered on other terrestrial planets and some natural sa ...

created by the hotspot has the composition of

basalt Basalt (; ) is an aphanitic (fine-grained) extrusive igneous rock formed from the rapid cooling of low-viscosity lava rich in magnesium and iron (mafic lava) exposed at or very near the surface of a rocky planet or moon. More than 90 ...

, and so the volcanoes are constructed almost entirely of this

igneous rock Igneous rock (derived from the Latin word ''ignis'' meaning fire), or magmatic rock, is one of the three main rock types, the others being sedimentary and metamorphic. Igneous rock is formed through the cooling and solidification of magma o ...

. The eruptions from the Bowie hotspot are effusive eruptions because basaltic magma is relatively fluid compared with magmas typically involved in more explosive eruptions, such as the

andesitic Andesite () is a volcanic rock of intermediate composition. In a general sense, it is the intermediate type between silica-poor basalt and silica-rich rhyolite. It is fine-grained (aphanitic) to porphyritic in texture, and is composed predomin ...

magmas that produce some of the spectacular and dangerous eruptions around the margins of the

. Bowie hotspot is believed to be perhaps wide and underlain by a

mantle plume A mantle plume is a proposed mechanism of convection within the Earth's mantle, hypothesized to explain anomalous volcanism. Because the plume head partially melts on reaching shallow depths, a plume is often invoked as the cause of volcanic hot ...

that is relatively deep. It is also considerably weak. Eruptions from the Bowie hotspot have left a trail of underwater mountains across the Pacific, called the Kodiak-Bowie Seamount chain, which is an underwater mountain region of seamounts along a line beneath the northern Pacific Ocean. The oldest volcano in the chain is

Kodiak Seamount Kodiak Seamount is the oldest seamount in the Kodiak-Bowie Seamount chain, with an estimated age of 24 million years. It lies at the northernmost end of the chain and its flat-topped summit is strewn with fault lines. Like the rest of the ...

with an estimated age of 24 million years and the youngest called Bowie Seamount. Geological studies show that the base of Bowie Seamount formed less than a million years ago. The summit of Bowie Seamount is even younger and shows signs of having been active as recently as 18,000 years ago. Because of its shallow depth, some

geologist A geologist is a scientist who studies the solid, liquid, and gaseous matter that constitutes Earth and other terrestrial planets, as well as the processes that shape them. Geologists usually study geology, earth science, or geophysics, althoug ...

s believe Bowie Seamount was an active volcanic island throughout last

ice age An ice age is a long period of reduction in the temperature of Earth's surface and atmosphere, resulting in the presence or expansion of continental and polar ice sheets and alpine glaciers. Earth's climate alternates between ice ages and gre ...

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Bowie Hotspot Hotspots of the Pacific Ocean Volcanism of British Columbia

See also

References