Hawaii Hotspot Hypothesis Widely Discredited

Illustrating the discredited Hawaii hotspot hypothesis
Discredited Hotspot Model

* Perpendicular Hotspot Chains? Real Science Radio's Bob Enyart and Fred Williams present the geology rebuttal to the "hotspot" explanation of the formation of the Hawaiian island chain. For example, hotspot volcano chains like in Hawaii and the Bermuda Rise have chains at large angles and even almost perpendicular to the claimed movement of their plates.

* RSR's Hotspot Rebuttal Series
- Hawaii Hotspot Hypothesis Widely Discredited Pt 1 (this show)
- Rebutting Hawaii's 'Hotspot' Origin Pt. 2
- Rebutting Hawaii's 'Hotspot' Origin Pt. 3
- Our Introductory Program, Hawaii's Kilauea Eruption, is sufficiently summarized in Part 1. However if you're a cross-your-Ts kind of person, we invite you to click on back to that preliminary program and enjoy.

* Highlights fomr Last Week's Introduction:
- NP Chief Ranger: Listeners appreciated that RSR's understanding of volcanism was affirmed last week by long-time national park chief ranger Mark Tanaka-Sanders from Hawaii's volcanic Haleakala NP when he joined Enyart and Williams in studio.
- Surtsey Island: The powerful counter-example of Surtsey was among the positive comments we've received about last week's broadcast when mainstream scientists admit that Surtsey, an island birthed only 55 years ago on November 14th, 1963, formed many surface features in just a few decades rather than in tens of thousands or millions of years that geologists have been taught would be required, of course thereby falsifying much of what the geology textbooks claim.
Hawaii's 2018 eruption affecting the Big Island's population- Contrast in Cubic Miles: The largest eruption of the last few thousand years produced only 36 cubic miles of magma whereas the lava fields from earlier history (i.e., from during and shortly after the global flood) produced from thousands to millions of cubic miles of magma! This six orders-of-magnitude contrast between modern and older lava flows provides evidence against the "uniformitarian" doctrine of secular geologists.

* Geologists Opposing Magma PlumesOn magma plumes, Dr. Hamiton, 43-year veteran of the U.S. Geological Survey, author of over 100 peer-reviewed papers, Distinguished Senior Scientist, Geophysics Department, Colorado School of Mines, recipient of the closest award to a Nobel Prize in geology, the Penrose Medal, wrote:

Different rules of evidence apply to current paradigms than to challengers. For current paradigms, evaluation is not necessary, for challengers, proof must be overwhelming before even a discussion is warranted. Appalling papers in support of mantle plumes are now being published in major journals, perhaps indicating that pro-plume reviewers will welcome any debris that will heighten the rampart against a paradigm shift.

Suppression of dissent is common. I know of many examples of prominent members of the pro-plume community stifling anti-plume reports and research. Although these stiflers might tell themselves that they are maintaining professional standards, "bad science" to them means anything contrary to their own beliefs. Many reviewers block grants to, and prevent publication by, anyone who holds a contrary view.

Widely accepted assumptions regarding the composition and behavior of the mantle appear to be in error, yet evaluation of alternatives is actively discouraged. The present enthusiasm for plumes represents groupthink that is easily falsified and yet is impervious to evidence. The fact that we are scientists confers no infallibility upon us, and our egos often lead us astray.

Hawaiian Emperor island chain's 60-degree sudden kink in the hot spot story
60 degree kink

* 60o Kink in the Hotspot Story: Like with the big bang predictions and the theory's constant secondary assumptions, data everywhere contradicts the expectations of the hotspot model. For example, even the Hawaiian islands themselves are part of a lengthier chain called the Hawaiin-Emperor chain. But a 60-degree kink occurs (kink, that is, in more ways than one), midway along this chain. Secondary assumptions to explain the shift in direction include the long-standing but unsettling change in the plate’s trajectory (which of course is somewhat like trying to move pieces in a jigsaw puzzle-like) to the idea offered in 2019 that the change in direction was caused by the enormous hot rock blob hovering around the mid-Pacific region in the lower half of the mantle.

* Jan 2022: "A substantial fraction of hotspots do not fit the classical plume model," said Vedran Lekic, a seismologist at the University of Maryland, College Park" - Scientists Find Surprisingly Cool 'Hotspots' Under Earth's Crust | Inside Science.

* More Plume Opposition: Prof. H.C. Sheth with Bombay's Indian Institute of Technology Bombay and specialist on the Deccan flood basalt provinces, as recently as 1997 supported the plume theory but by 1998 he had made a complete reversal writing in Elsevier's Tectonophysics:

Superficially the mantle plume explanation seems attractive and has had a tremendous appeal. However, its numerous built-in fallacies, contradictions and failings are unfortunately little discussed in much of the current literature, and it has acquired the status of an unchallengeable dogma and an obvious fact (VII p. 2).

Few predictions and requirements of the mantle plume model seem to be fulfilled in the actual geology” (VII p. 20).

The plume idea is ad hoc, artificial, unnecessary, inadequate, and in some cases even self-defeating, and should be abandoned (VII p. 23).

The popular and widespread notion that hotspot tracks are simply the products of one or more plumes beneath moving plates is actually far from reality (VII p. 22).

Click to see the names of additional scientists who reject magma plumes and who reject plate tectonics.

* 2020 Update of Unexpected Deep Hot Stuff: Check out the following three discoveries. Massive features, hot blobs, etc., are further indications (as at rsr.org/not-so-old-things) of a young earth in that our planet has not yet achieved thermal equilibrium. Remember, as a renowned physicist agreed on our program at rsr.org/lawrence-krauss that 90% of earth's radioactivity is in the crust (and, primarily in the continental crust at that)! So, for our first discovery, without a justifiable claim to being heated by radioactive decay, why have these blobs, under the Pacific and near its antipode, remained so hot?

And from Live Science, Meet 'The Blobs': Two Continent-Size Mountains in Earth's Deep Mantle That Nobody Understands...

In the lower mantel, two continent-sized hot-blob mountains

And then From phys.org, June 2020, Scientists detect unexpected widespread structures near Earth's core...

Newly detected structures near earth's core; 2020

And while we're at it, we'll throw in the molten lake under much of the western U.S. (covering an area the size of Mexico) discovered in 2017 and published in Pervasive upper mantle melting beneath the western US in the journal Earth and Planetary Letters...

Map of molten lake under the western U.S. the size of Mexico


* RSR's Grand Canyon Special: Help spread the word, get better informed, and keep us broadcasting by purchasing RSR's $100 Grand Canyon Special, our canyon radio series on disc, two stunning videos, and three copies of Walt Brown's book! 

RSR's Grand Canyon Special: 3 In the Beginning books, the Nickel and Snavely videos, and our Grand Canyon series on an audio CD!


* A Pallet of Dr. Brown's ITB Books: As announced on today's program, RSR is offering 8 (eight!) copies of Walt Brown's stunning In the Beginning book for only $100 and $150 after Sept. 2018! We can offer them at this price because a few weeks back our audience financially enabled us to get a whole pallet of them delivered right to our RSR studios! (Enlarge image to read box contents.)

A whole pallet of Walt Brown's In the Beginning books delivered to the RSR studios!
Get a full case of Dr. Brown's ITB books!

* Help Us Reach a Minor YouTube Milestone: Our YouTube channel is closing in on 450,000 views! Perhaps you can mosey on over to our BEL/RSR YouTube channel (where you can see the current # of views), then click on the "Home" button to get ot the BEL videos homepage, and select a video to watch to help us hit this next goal!

* Loosely Related: Lava Water Swim & CPT. At rsr.org/cpt we expose the fallacy of the flood model known as Catastrophic Plate Tectonics. CPT is an alternative to the RSR-supported fountains-of-the-great-deep model known as the Hydroplate Theory. CPT suggests that massive quantities of magma breaking out onto the ocean floor would cause supersonic steam jets shooting into the upper atmosphere. That is one of many of the model's claims challenged by Real Science Radio and Dr. Walt Brown's Hydroplate Theory model. This video doesn't show "massive quantities" of magma but, nonetheless, we think it's a reminder of one of the many weaknesses of CPT.

Warning: Aside from the other obvious dangers with swimming where lava enters the sea, people have been killed by the steam produced, which geologists call laze, which contains hydrocloric acid and fine particles of volcanic glass.

* Hear, See, and Read RSR's Related Resources:
Fountains of MAGMA (?) of the Great Deep. Huh?
Deep Magma Can't Rise: The Crossover Depth!
Hotspot Hypothesis Widely Discredited (this series)
Plate Tectonics: Subduction Doesn't Happen 
Plate Tectonics: Convection Doesn't Happen
Catastrophic Plate Tectonics Miracles
rsr.org/catastrophic-plate-tectonics
rsr.org/hydroplate-theory
rsr.org/bryan-nickel
- Bible verses uniquely supporting various flood models
Physical features crying out for explanation.

RSR's button for a multi-creation site custom Google search* Have You Tried RSR's Multiple Creation Site Search? The latest Real Science Radio service provides a customized multi-creation-site Google search! Let's say you want to learn about the creationist explanation for the origin of comets to expose the secular model's inability to account for their olivine and other earth-like minerals. By using RSR's Multiple Creation Site Search, powered by Google, you'll be simultaneously searching the four largest and most popular creation sites and our own RSR pages! This tool bypasses the confusion and noise of the Internet and let's you search simultaneously (including countless articles written by friends of Real Science Radio) the websites of Creation Ministries International, Answers in Genesis, the Institute for Creation Research, Dr. Walt Brown's Center for Scientific Creation, and our own RSR resources (at kgov.com, 360dayyear.com and youngearth.com). Enjoy!