Azores but this is not certain. In Thomas Ashe's 1813 work, "A History of the Azores", the author identified a Fleming, Joshua Vander Berg of Bruges, who made landfall in the archipelago during a storm on his way to Lisbon. He stated that the Portuguese explored the area and claimed it for Portugal. Other stories note the discovery of the first islands (São Miguel Island, Santa Maria Island and Terceira Island) by sailors in the service of Henry the Navigator, although there are few documents to support the claims. Although it is commonly said that the archipelago received its name from
Azores hotspot from Azores Plateau, which is an area of thickened oceanic crust and is thought to be formed from the Azores hotspot 20 Mya. This has been shown through mapping negative velocity S-wave anomalies beneath the Azores. This has shown that beneath the Azores Plateau there is a negative anomaly limited in the upper 250–300 km which is suggestive to be a signature to a present-day dying plume which would have created the Azores Plateau. The Mid Atlantic Ridge offers a different perspective and insight into hotspots. The ridge acts as a cross section through the mantle plume. Anomalies on the