Pacific hotspots reveal a Louisville-Ontong-Java Nui tectonic link

Volcanic hotspots are thought to form by melting in an upwelling mantle plume head followed by melting of the plume tail. Plate motion then generates an age-progressive volcanic track originating from a large igneous province (LIP) to a presently-active hotspot. The most voluminous LIP, the ~120 Ma Ontong-Java Nui Plateau (OJP-Nui) in the mid-Pacific, however, lacks an obvious volcanic track. Although the Louisville hotspot track was originally proposed as a candidate, limited constraints for Pacific absolute plate and plume motion prior to 80 Ma suggest a mismatch1. Existing Pacific models rely on age-distance data from the continuous Hawaiʻi-Emperor and Louisville tracks, but their tracks older than ~80 Ma are subducted. Elsewhere on the Pacific plate, only discontinuous seamount tracks formed prior to 80 Ma2–7 are documented. Currently, models require ~1,200 km of latitudinal motion to link the Louisville plume to the OJP-Nui1, yet paleolatitude estimates from ~70 Ma to today remain within error of its present location8,9 suggesting that any significant Louisville plume motion occurred earlier. Here, through a combination of geochemistry and geochronology9–14, we demonstrate that Samoa and Rurutu-Arago are the longest-lived Pacific hotspots, traceable to >120 Ma before subducting into the Mariana Trench. These newly-defined tracks better constrain plate rotation between 80-100 Ma, allowing us to update Pacific absolute plate motion models, and link the Louisville volcanic track to OJP-Nui without requiring major plume motion.