Plates vs. plumes: A geological controversy / Плиты и плюмы: геологические споры

The debate regarding whether or not melting anomalies are fuelled by hot diapirs from the deep mantle – the Plume hypothesis – or whether they arise from shallow processes ltimately related to plate tectonics – the Plate hypothesis  – is an extraordinarily rich cross - disciplinary subject with seemingly endless ramifi cations. Relevant material is scattered far and wide, and because of this, over the last decade, scientists have come together and tried to address this problem using the website www.mantleplumes.org. It grew like Topsy following its founding on 5th March, 2003 and now includes thousands of items contributed by over 500 scientists from many parts of the world. Nevertheless, even when collected together in a single website, making sense of the vast ocean of data relevant to this fascinating subject still presented an extraordinary challenge to the aspiring student. A substantial, coherent work, organized by subject, was still lacking. 
 I was thus rather easily persuaded, in the summer of 2007, to write the present book. In it I have attempted to summarize where we stand today in some of the subjects most central to the debate. The Plume hypothesis makes fi ve fundamental predictions that can be tested by studying the vertical motions of Earth ’ s surface, magma volumes, the spatial and temporal pattern of volcanism, seismic imaging of the crust and mantle, and the temperature of the mantle source rocks. The Plate hypothesis makes contrasting predictions in these fi elds. I have devoted a chapter to each, focusing on how well the observations match the predictions. I include additionally a chapter on geochemistry, which has been extensively applied in an effort to reveal the physical and spatial origins of surface - erupted magmas. Deciding what to put in and what to leave out has not been easy, and important subjects such as the effect of pre - existing lithospheric structure on localizing volcanism, the physical origins of the melt source, bolide impacts, and planetary volcanism remain to be treated in more detail. <...>