Migration of Widespread Long-Lived Volcanism across the Galápagos Volcanic Province: Evidence for a broad hotspot melting Anomaly?

The well-studied Galápagos Archipelago is a small part of the much larger Galápagos Volcanic Province (GVP) consisting of the Cocos, Carnegie, Coiba and Malpelo aseismic ridges and related seamount provinces. Although these aseismic ridges and seamounts dominate the morphology of the region, little is known about their origin due to a lack of direct age and geochemical information. In order to establish how well the GVP fits with the predictions of the 'standard' fixed hotspot and mantle plume hypotheses we conducted a first reconnaissance dredge/grab sampling of submerged regions of the GVP. We present here