Fossil hot spot‐ridge interaction in the Musicians Seamount Province: Geophysical investigations of hot spot volcanism at volcanic elongated ridges

The Musicians Seamount Province is a group of volcanic elongated ridges (VERs) and single seamounts located north of the Hawaiian Chain. A 327° trending seamount chain defines the western part of the province and has been interpreted as the expression of a Cretaceous hot spot beneath the northward moving Pacific Plate. To the east, elongated E‐W striking ridges dominate the morphology. In 1999, wide‐angle seismic data were collected across two 400 km long VERs. We present tomographic images of the volcanic edifices, which indicate that crustal thickening occurs in oceanic layer 2 rather than in layer 3. This extrusive style of volcanism appears to strongly contrast with the formation processes of aseismic ridges, where crustal thickening is mostly accommodated by intrusive underplating. High‐resolution bathymetry was also collected, which yields a detailed image of the morphology of the VERs. From the occurrence of flat‐top guyots and from the unique geomorphologic setting, two independent age constraints for the Pacific crust during the Cretaceous “quiet” zone are obtained, allowing a tectonic reconstruction for the formation of the Musicians VERs. Hot spot‐ridge interaction leads to asthenosphere channeling from the plume to the nearby spreading center over a maximum distance of 400 km. The Musicians VERs were formed by mainly extrusive volcanism on top of this melt‐generating channel. The proposed formation model may be applicable to a number of observed volcanic ridges in the Pacific, including the Tuamotu Isles, the eastern portion of the Foundation chain, and the western termination of the Salas y Gomez seamount chain.