A Penrose Conference "Plume IV: Beyond the Plume Hypothesis" will be run in Iceland, August 2003. The overall objective of the Conference is to develop alternative models for large volcanic provinces. This will be achieved through critical examination of the plume hypothesis in the light of the three decades of research since its original proposal, discussion and assessment of alternative models, and identification of the major tasks ahead in the field. The Conference will last a week, be limited to 60 participants and have a dominantly discussion-based format. It will be the first conference to be held on this subject, and will provide focus and definition to an embryonic subject, that of alternative mechanisms for large volcanic provinces. The plume hypothesis [Morgan, 1971] has been invoked, largely uncritically, for 30 years, to explain the origin of voluminous, long-lived volcanism at intraplate and near- ridge locations such as Yellowstone, Hawaii and Iceland. It is popularly adopted as a fundamental premise of geology and presented as isfactle in educational settings at all levels. However, with the acquisition of ever-superior data, e.g. radiometric ages and whole-mantle tomography, it is becoming increasingly clear that large volcanic areas are far more complex than initially supposed, and it has been necessary to elaborate increasingly the original simple plume hypothesis in order to fit the new data. This conference will provide a foundation forum for the subject.
