tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-544645999733904675.post6241851723136579357..comments2023-09-27T02:16:30.021-10:00Comments on American Samoa & the Pacific Remote Islands: Exploring South BankNOAA CREDhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07146478103110221996noreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-544645999733904675.post-81895675284730247862010-03-12T18:26:25.956-10:002010-03-12T18:26:25.956-10:00Great blog! Thanks so much for providing these des...Great blog! Thanks so much for providing these descriptions and stunning photos! I'm wondering if South Bank is analogous to what many of us call Papatua. See http://dusk.geo.orst.edu/djl/samoa/papatua.jpg . From one of the former students in my lab, Jed Roberts: "Though it has not been radiometrically dated, it is probably at least as old as Tutuila, based on its location in the Eastern Samoa Volcanic Province. The summit of Papatua sits very near sea level. It likely breached in the past and has since been eroded by wave action to produce a flat summit surface. Papatua has two perpendicular rifting trends nearly in line with the four cardinal directions. Though it is probably at least a million years old, its northern and southwestern flanks show relatively little evidence of slope failure and are superimposed with small seamounts. It shows an emerging stellate morphology, though it is not nearly as developed as on Tutuila or Muli. The shield‐building stage for Papatua is not easily attributable to a plume source based on its divergent location and anomalous primary rift trend of N0°E, though Hart et al. (2004) suggest decompressional melting due to slab‐plume interactions could account for the location of Papatua."Dawn Wrighthttp://dusk.geo.orst.edu/djlnoreply@blogger.com