Heat-flow anomaly and residual topography in the Mascarene hotspot swell (Indian Ocean)

We review the sea-bottom heat-flow determinations and present a new heat-flow observation on the Mauritius island, which is part of the long-lived Reunion hotspot track. The marine heat flow is on average 66 ± 11 mW m−2 and is consistent with the on-land value of 61 ± 18 mW m−2 found in Mauritius. Since these values do not significantly deviate from the reference cooling-plate model, lithosphere erosion does not seem a likely mechanism for the swell formation. The lack of significant reheating due to a mantle plume impacting the lithosphere base is confirmed by thermal modelling. Moreover, the coherency between on-land and marine data is argument against advective redistribution of heat near the axis of the swell. We also analyse the large-scale features of the ocean lithosphere, which are not simply a function of the plate cooling and can reflect variations in mantle dynamic topography. The predicted topography variation along the swell shows amplitude and wavelength comparable to other hotspots. Both the topographic swell magnitude and the wavelength increase northwards with the increase of the age of volcanism. The estimated flux of material from the mantle follows the same trend, being larger in the northern part of the swell. The result that residual topography and the buoyancy flux are smaller at the active volcano of Reunion could be evidence that the activity of the plume has decreased with time.