"The only way to account for these findings is if the Pacific plate was almost stationary for a time while the magma plume was moving south," says Rory Cottrell, research scientist and coauthor of the paper. "At some point about 45 million years ago, it seems that the plume stopped moving and the plate began."
At the mysterious bend in the chain the magnetite latitude readings level off to 19 degrees, suggesting that for some reason the magma plume stopped dead in its tracks.
"Why the hot spot stopped moving south, and whether this is related to the Pacific plate suddenly moving, is something we'd all like to discover," says Tarduno. "There's been a quiet controversy about hot-spot motion for 30 years because some people thought the accepted theory wasn't adding up. This study answers a lot of questions.
Univ. Rochester (NY) August 18, 2003link robotwisdom
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Velikovsky