Who found Samoa
It was Samoa who foundRecent studies identifying Samoa on its way to a geological "hotspot" pathway are contributing to a lively scholarly discussion on the formation of volcanic ridges, especially in the Pacific. Anthony Koppers and his Oregon State University counterparts came to the conclusion that the course of Samoa's and the neighboring islands' ages clearly corresponded to the science that the necklace was generated by a hot spot.
During the movement of the sea bed, these vulcanic structure "migrate" along the way of this movement and form a series of sea mounts that can arise above the sea floor, as in the case of the islands of Hawaii, Samoa and the Society Islands in the Pacific. However, there has also been a vociferous "anti-flower" group in the academic fellowship claiming that hot spot theories are not under the microscope.
You endorse the notion that the 50,000 sea mountains of the Earth - most of which have never been studied - may have been created by the tectonics of the plaque, which have put local pressure and expanded the Pacific plaque. There' s room for both theory, says Koppers, who was the main writer of the geology studies.
The age of Samoa, which is a mystery among researchers, is calculated from the age of the volcanic eruptions collected on the subaerial surface of its islets. A number of researchers took this opportunity to point out that the formation of the island is due to the fact that magnetism seeps through fissures in the seabed into stress fractures.
Koppers' research, financed by the National Science Foundation, found that earlier Samoan archaeological surveys concentrated on lands that had been above sealevel and were much "younger" in geological terms than older cliffs at the foot of the Seeberge. Had he really been part of a prime hot spot path, he should have been nearer 5 million years old, on the basis of the ages seen in other Pacific Seamoundtrails, such as the one that begins on the "big island" of Hawaii.
Coppers and his co-workers - from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution and the Scripps Institution of Oceanography - tried rock samples down the flank of the isle and then used radiation-based ages to find that they were actually 5 million years old. The Samoa is near the Tonga Trench, said Mr Koppers, where the Pacific Rift Valley is sinking and bending strongly under another one.
"The resulting load on the slab makes vulcanic process more difficult," he said.