Dominant influence of volcanic loading on vertical motions of the Hawaiian Islands

Abstract

Rates of island vertical motion above intra-plate hotspots record the processes that arise from interactions between lithospheric plates and mantle plumes. To assess the contribution of mantle and lithospheric processes to surface motion above the Hawaiian hotspot, we compare simple models of lithospheric deformation to vertical motion rates measured from dated paleoshorelines and tide gauge records in the Hawaiian Islands. Our analysis shows that observed uplift and subsidence rates mainly record the flexural response of the lithosphere to volcanic loads. The effective elastic plate thickness that best fits the spatial distribution of subsidence and uplift rates is ∼40 km, consistent with previous estimates based on total vertical deflection.Because volcanic loading dominates the vertical motion signal, Hawaiian Islands appear to follow a predictable trajectory of vertical motion when they reside within one flexural half-wavelength of the active volcanic center. Islands initially subside at rapid and decreasing rates in the first ∼1 Myr following their construction, uplift relatively slowly ∼1–2.5 Myr following their construction, and eventually subside again, but at slow rates, within ∼5 Myr of their construction. This observed pattern of uplift and subsidence is consistent with the pattern of vertical motion predicted to result from volcanic loading at the Hawaiian hotspot.Lithospheric migration over the long-wavelength topographic swell associated with the Hawaiian hotspot has a comparatively minor influence on island uplift and subsidence. Its contribution to island vertical motion is not readily observed in our data, with the possible exception of some uplift observed in the past ∼500 kyr on O‘ahu that might correspond to non-steady state behavior of the Hawaiian plume.