The Magnetics Information Consortium (MagIC) database provides an archive with a flexible data model for paleomagnetic and rock magnetic data. The PmagPy software package is a cross-platform and open-source set of tools written in Python for the analysis of paleomagnetic data that serves as one interface to MagIC, accommodating various levels of user expertise. PmagPy facilitates thorough documentation of sampling, measurements, data sets, visualization, and interpretation of paleomagnetic and rock magnetic experimental data. Although not the only route into the MagIC database, PmagPy makes preparation of newly published data sets for contribution to MagIC as a byproduct of normal data analysis and allows manipulation as well as reanalysis of data sets downloaded from MagIC with a single software package. The graphical user interface (GUI), Pmag GUI enables use of much of PmagPy's functionality, but the full capabilities of PmagPy extend well beyond that. Over 400 programs and functions can be called from the command line interface mode, or from within the interactive Jupyter notebooks. Use of PmagPy within a notebook allows for documentation of the workflow from the laboratory to the production of each published figure or data table, making research results fully reproducible. The PmagPy design and its development using GitHub accommodates extensions to its capabilities through development of new tools by the user community. Here we describe the PmagPy software package and illustrate the power of data discovery and reuse through a reanalysis of published paleointensity data which illustrates how the effectiveness of selection criteria can be tested.

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The motion of the Pacific plate relative to Pacific hotspots produces age‐progressive chains of volcanoes. Methods of analysis of volcano locations and age dates using a small number of adjustable parameters (10 per chain) are presented. Simple fits to age progressions along Pacific hotspot chains indicate 1σ dispersions of age dates of ≈±1.0–±3.0 Ma. Motion between the Hawaii and Louisville hotspots differs insignificantly from zero with rates of 2 ± 4 mm/a (=±2σ) for 0–48 Ma and 26 ± 34 mm/a (=±2σ) for 48–80 Ma. Relative to a mean Pacific hotspot reference frame, motions of the Hawaii, Louisville, and Rurutu hotspots are also insignificant. Therefore plumes underlying these Pacific hotspots may be more stable in a convecting mantle than previously inferred. We find no significant difference in age between the Eocene bends of the Pacific hotspot chains. The best‐fitting assumed‐coeval age for the bends is 47.4 ± 1.0 Ma (=±2σ), coincident with the initiation of the doubling of the spreading rate of the Pacific plate relative to the Farallon and Vancouver plates. The initiation of the Eocene collision of India with Eurasia preceded the formation of the bends and was completed after their formation. Initiation of subduction of the Pacific plate in the west and southwest Pacific Ocean Basin likely preceded the formation of the bends, consistent with subduction initiation changing the torque on the Pacific plate such that it started moving in a more westward direction thus creating the Hawaiian‐Emperor Bend.