THE BIVORTEX & MOVING VOLCANIC HOT SPOTS
Copyright 2008 By George William Kelly    

The article, “Hot Spots Unplugged,” by John A. Tarduno in the January 2008 SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN suggested that the "Emperor-Hawaiian" volcanic chain of Pacific Ocean seamounts and islands (stretching from the Aleutians to Hawaii) may have been created by a volcanic hot spot that that has been moving for millions of years southeasterly along the ocean floor.  Previously it has been thought that the Emperor-Hawaian chain resulted from a stationary volcanic hot spot which erupted through a tectonic plate passing slowly in a northwesterly direction above the hot spot.

In either case, the volcanic hot spot presently is located in the Hawaian Islands, and the Hawaiian chain's volcanism continues to develop in a southeasterly direction, toward the equator. Study of flat-lying lava layers showed that one of the northernmost seamounts in the chain, Suiko, formed 61 million-years-ago (mya) at 27 degrees north, near the Aleutian Islands.  The Hawaii seamount formed less than 5 million-years-ago at 19 degrees north.  This difference in the actual latitude of formation was corroborated by the presence of coral debris at the Hawaii seamount and the absence of coral debris at the northern seamounts. (Coral only grows at warmer latitudes.) Tarduno’s article listed the successive formation ages of several of the chain’s seamounts and islands as follows: Detroit(75-81 mya), Suiko(61 mya), Nintoku(56 mya), Koko(49-50mya), Daikakuji(47 mya), Midway(28 mya), Necker(10 mya), Kauai(5 mya), and Hawaii(less than 5 mya).    

The article indicated that this apparent mobility of a volcanic hot spot raises the question of what hot spots really are.  They had been thought to be the stationary tips of plumes rising directly to the earth’s surface from the lower mantle.  The new idea of hot spot mobility has brought suggestions that a plume’s base “may move around, and the rising plume may be bent by the mantle flow.”  Others, the article says, have suggested that hot spot plumes may be “shallow phenomena, emerging from the upper layers of the mantle or lower layers of the crust.”     

Tarduno’s article prompted me to hypothesize another cause for the "moving hot spot" of the Emperor-Hawaiian chain. The cause that I propose is based on the “bivortex theory,” which I have been developing--as an amateur theorist--for a number of years. The "bivortex" of my theory is a rotating spheroidal body composed of moving particles.  It has the shape of an apple (or of a proton, or of the Earth, or of the Sun, or of a galaxy) with a vortex at each pole.  Particles flow into both polar vortexes. They spiral inward in the form of a centrally-tapered axial tube, concentrating and gathering speed as they near the tube's center.  At the center the two opposing particle streams meet and radiate outward explosively.  The pathways of the radiating particles divide along the equatorial plane.  The particles return hemispherically toward the two halves of the axial tube and also toward the two polar vortexes, creating and maintaining the spheroidal shape of the overall bivortex body.  The particles continually recycle in this pattern, forming quadrupolar bivortex field lines that constitute a unified "gravito-electro-magnetic" field.  (It is a grand unified theory.) 

When the bivortex body has enough energy but lacks sufficient free particles in its vicinity to permit larger growth, it may sprout high-energy “bipolar jets” to great distances, attracting additional particles to feed its growth.  Powerful bipolar jets extending millions of light-years have been observed in many galaxies. In the case of the Earth, bipolar jets from its central core, though not powerful enough to appear beyond the Earth's North and South Poles, should have ample energy to result in two, opposite, volcanic hot spots that erupt through the Earth's crust. One hot spot would be caused by the jet from the north pole of the core-bivortex and the other from the south pole of the core-bivortex.      

Consider the situation where such a small core bivortex develops at the center of a large bivortex. To illustrate, I shall take the example of the Sun.  In seeking to provide an explanation of the 22-year solar sunspot cycle, I previously speculated that a miniature, core-bivortex forms at the center of the larger solar bivortex. The core-bivortex can spin with its axis parallel to the axis of the outer solar bivortex.  Or, it could begin to tumble pole-over-pole as it spins. Over time it would tumble 360 degrees and return to its original orientation relative to the axis of the outer solar bivortex. 

While spinning with its axis parallel to the axis of the outer Sun, the core-bivortex can eject “baby” bivortex bubbles from the perimeter of its own equator.  The baby bivortexes will "float" outward along the larger solar equatorial plane toward the solar surface, with their axes parallel to the solar surface.  At the surface the two opposite polar vortexes of each baby bivortex bubble will appear simultaneously as a pair of “sunspots.”  As a baby bivortex bubble emerges from the surface, its outer surface forms a fiery arch between the baby bivortex's polar dark "spots."  As the bubble bursts, it results in coronal mass ejections.  This outpouring of hot particles fresh from the Sun's extremely hot center causes the solar corona to be much hotter than the solar surface.        

When the axis of the core-bivortex begins to tumble, relative to the outer Sun's axis, the tumbling produces the long-observed 22-year sunspot cycle.  Eleven years represents one-half of a 360-degree tumble by the core-bivortex, followed by a second 11 years back to its starting point.  When the core-bivortex poles cross the solar equator, the polarity of the sunspots reverses.  At this time, the core-bivortex equator is aligned with the outer-solar poles; the polar solar wind is strongest; and the solar sunspot “minimum” occurs.  The solar sunspot “maximum” occurs when the core-bivortex equator approaches and crosses over the Sun’s equator at the solar surface. 
  
If the core-bivortex of the Sun produces bipolar jets, so could the core-bivortex of the Earth.  The bipolar jets of the Earth’s core-bivortex are extremely energetic and hot.  If the core-bivortex begins to tumble pole-over-pole, its hot bipolar jets will act as two moving plumes.  Each plume will create a moving volcanic hot spot on the Earth’s surface.  One of these hot polar jet plumes could have migrated from the outer Earth’s North Pole southward through what is now the Pacific Ocean.  In so doing it could have created the Emperor-Hawaiian chain of volcanic seamounts and islands.     

If this scenario is true, an equivalent chain of seamounts and islands would have been simultaneously created by the core-bivortex’s other pole on the opposite side of the Earth, starting in the Antarctic and moving northward through the South Atlantic Ocean.  I have searched my globe for such a twin seamount chain.  I found South Atlantic seamounts and islands that might possibly correspond to the Emperor-Hawaiian chain.  However, I am an amateur and confirmation will have to come from geologists.     

The first appearance of a twin chain in the South Atlantic Ocean might be Maud Seamount, a few degrees north of the Antarctic Circle.  Next in the chain might be Bouvet Island, Meteor Seamount, Discovery Seamount, and the Agulhas Plateau.  The Agulhas Plateau extends from Meteor and Discovery seamounts to the waters south of Port Elizabeth, South Africa.  King Seamount rises from the Agulhas Plateau near Port Elizabeth. This suggested South Atlantic hot spot chain veers northeastward from Meteor and Discovery, just as the Emperor-Hawaiian chain veers southeastward.  The reason might be that the jet plumes of the core-bivortex are simply conforming to the expanding equatorial bulge of the Earth. This would rule out a cataclysmic cause, which some writers have given for the bending of the Emperor-Hawaiian chain. Another explanation might be that the core-bivorex jet plumes bend around a pre-existing obstacle.  For example, the Emperor-Hawaiian chain might have bent around the pre-existing Mid Pacific Mountains.  The Maud-Agulhas chain might have been forced to bend upon confronting the African continental plate.       

In looking for an active hot spot that would be the twin of present-day Hawaii, I found two neighboring East African Rift volcanoes in the Democratic Republic of Congo:  Mt. Nyamuragira and Mt. Nyiragongo.  Mt. Nyamuragira is known as Africa’s most active volcano.  It is a high-potassium basaltic shield volcano.  Could these volcanoes be the polar twin of Hawaii, even though they are a little closer to the equator and arise through a rift in the continent of Africa?     

Alternatives to the African Rift hotspots are the volcanic-hot-spot Comoros Islands or Reunion Island. They are approximately antipodal to present-day Hawaii. The South Atlantic core-bivortex plume could have curved around the African mainland and passed through the ocean channel between Mozambique and Madagascar, arriving at present-day Comoros.  Or, it could have traveled east of Madagascar to present-day Reunion.    

The Maud end of the South Atlantic seamount chain is cut short by the continent of Antarctica.    

At the Earth's opposite, north polar region a seamount that probably could be the northern beginning of the Emperor-Hawaiian chain has been discovered very near the North Pole itself.  It is the Chukchi Plateau Seamount at approximately 78 degrees north.  This seamount, which is taller than Mt. Rainier, was discovered in 2003 by NOAA (National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration). [Pg 7-8, National Science Foundation 05-39, Arctic Research of the United States,Volume 19, Spring/Summer 2005 www.nsf.gov/pubs/2005/nsf0539/index.jsp]    

One puzzle about hot spot chains is the large number of mid-ocean chains around the Earth.  Some chains have sequential age formations; some chains show simultaneous age formation. Some are oriented in different directions from others. Some are in the form of mid-ocean ridges that have not reached the oceanic surface.

The bivortex theory proposes that two currently forming chains (the Hawaiian chain and its antipodal twin) result from the core's bipolar jet plumes and show an age progression.

Secondly, the bivortex theory proposes that an entirely separate band of volcanic eruption occurs due to a flow of matter outward along the core's equatorial plane, perpendicular to the core's axis. This band extends around the circumference of the Earth's surface, producing ocean-floor ridges and continental rifts.

Finally, a third and more distantly related volcanic-island-chain category might arise through faults along tectonic plate subductions.

In the tumbling core-bivortex model, the bipolar jets would create two hot spot chains simultaneously, on opposite sides of the Earth.  A complete 360-degree tumble of the Earth's core-bivortex would create eight hot spot chains (counting each four quarter-turn tumble segment separately) during a time span of 360million years (counting each quarter-turn as 90 million years).  The Emperor-Hawaii chain has been estimated at 70 million years, not counting extensions from the North Pole to the northernmost Emperor seamount, or from Hawaii to the Earth's equator.  Therefore, I have added 20 million years to account for these two extensions and arrive at a total quarter-turn of 90 million years per quarter-turn-tumble of the Emperor-Hawaii seamount chain.  

While the two polar jet plumes of the Earth’s core-bivortex tumble and create a twin chain of seamounts and islands on opposite sides of the Earth, the core-bivortex equator continues spinning around the axis.  It extrudes a continuous band of upward-thrusting mountains around the Earth.  This mountain band girdles the Earth at an angle of ninety degrees--perpendicular--to the core-bivortex polar axis.  It emerges, following an angled path of least resistance between continents, for example, the "Mid-Atlantic Ridge" ocean-bottom mountain range.  It likely continues through a Wedell Sea/Ross Sea rift through Anarctica.  Its path through the west Pacific is speculative. Perhaps the path winds around Australia, through the Tasman and Coral Seas; between New Zealand/New Guinea and Australia; onward to the Philippines and Japan; between the Kamchatka peninsula and the mainland; across the Arctic Sea; past Iceland and Greenland; and along the Mid-Atlantic ridge to complete the circle.  The tumbling core-bivortex slowly spews out this Earth-girdling band of volcanic mountains from its equator as it rotates around a Hawaii-Comoros/Reunion axis.  The angle of the emerging mountain band shifts gradually as the core-bivortex axis continues to tumble for millions of years.  The belt of seafloor-spreading tilts in step with the progressive-age formation of the bipolar "hot spot" island-seamount chains.     

Another possible effect of the Earth's tumbling bivortex-core has to do with the reversal of the Earth's magnetic field.  If the bivortex-core's poles are nearing the outer Earth's equator (the present position of Hawaii), the Earth's magnetic field may be in for a switch in the near geological future.  Masaru Kono said in Science Magazine (May 12, 2006) that ships' logs help to show that the strength of the Earth's magnetic field was stable until the mid 1800s, but since then flux changes may have caused a steady decline in strength.       
- posted by George William Kelly @ 4:35 PM