Plate-Hotspot Loci in Google Earth

A new model data set is available for Google Earth: Pacific and Nazca plate loci in four frames .

These calculated loci, representing motion of the Pacific and Nazca plates in four different reference frames, demonstrate the remarkable correspondence of motion among the Hawaiian hotspot frame and the North and South American plates. Pilger (2007) has discussed the implications of this correspondence for the existence of at least two different hotspot reference frames: Hawaiian (beneath the plates of the Pacific) and Tristan (beneath the Atlantic and Indian Oceans and adjacent continents). This contrasts with the persistent assumption that the global hotspot set represents a single hotspot reference frame. By viewing in Google Earth, the correspondence is apparent over the extent of the Pacific plate where long-lived hotspot traces exist.