Gd. Acton et Rg. Gordon, PALEOMAGNETIC TESTS OF PACIFIC PLATE RECONSTRUCTIONS AND IMPLICATIONSFOR MOTION BETWEEN HOTSPOTS, Science, 263(5151), 1994, pp. 1246-1254
The plate-motion circuit through the South Pacific and Antarctica is s
hown to fail paleomagnetic tests of consistency. These failures imply
that reconstructions of Pacific basin plates relative to surrounding p
lates inferred from this circuit are systematically in error and that
estimates of motion between hotspots inferred from this circuit are pr
obably too large. Therefore, the motions between hotspots remain poorl
y known and may be much smaller than previously estimated.