Seismic evidence for a mantle plume beneath the Cape Verde hotspot

P- and S-wave tomography of the upper mantle beneath the Cape Verde hotspot is determined using arrival-time data measured precisely from three-component seismograms of 106 distant earthquakes recorded by a local seismic network. Our results show a prominent low-velocity anomaly imaged as a continuous column <100 km wide from the uppermost mantle down to about 500 km beneath Cape Verde, especially below the Fogo active volcano, which erupted in 1995. The low-velocity anomaly may reflect a hot mantle plume feeding the Cape Verde hotspot.