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GCSE Geography · key term
An area of volcanic activity supplied by rising hot material from the mantle, which can occur away from plate boundaries.
Used by AQA, Edexcel and OCR
Specification 3.1.1.2 · Paper 1
An area of volcanic activity supplied by rising hot material from within the mantle, which can occur away from a plate margin.
Revise: Plate Tectonics and Plate MarginsHotspots can supply magma to volcanoes within plates, away from their edges. A useful description therefore combines the overall pattern, named locations and exceptions; ‘all volcanoes are on plate margins’ would miss an important part of the distribution.
Paper 1
Hotspots can occur away from plate boundaries, but not all do: Iceland has both a divergent boundary and a hotspot.
Hotspots are not a fifth type of plate boundary: volcanic activity can occur within a plate.
Use ‘usually’ or ‘typically’: shield volcanoes are commonly associated with constructive boundaries and hotspots, while composite volcanoes commonly occur at destructive boundaries.
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A volcanic area supplied by rising hot mantle material, which can occur within a plate rather than at its boundary.
Hotspots provide another setting for volcanoes, including locations far from a plate boundary.
Specification 1.2a · Paper 1, Paper 3
Revise: Processes at Plate Boundaries and HotspotsA hotspot is an area supplied by rising hot material from the mantle. Magma rises through the overlying crust and can erupt at the surface, forming a volcano within a plate.
An area of volcanic activity associated with a rising mantle plume, which can occur away from plate boundaries.