A mantle plume is a buoyant, localized upwelling of anomalously hot, partially molten or near-solid-state mantle material that rises from depth toward the lithosphere, driven primarily by thermal and compositional density contrasts. In geodynamic models, mantle plumes are often represented as narrow, cylindrical conduits with bulbous heads, capable of producing large magma volumes upon decompression melting in the upper mantle. They are invoked to explain intraplate magmatism, flood basalt provinces, and hotspot volcanism, and are studied through seismic tomography, geochemical tracers (e.g., isotopic signatures), and numerical or analogue convection experiments that constrain their temperature excess, geometry, and temporal evolution.
A large region of unusually hot rock deep beneath the Appalachian Mountains in the United States could be linked to Greenland and North America splitting apart 80 million years ago, according to new research led by the University ...
Earth Sciences
Jul 29, 2025
0
124
Earth's continents may look fixed on a globe, but they've been drifting, splitting and reforming over billions of years—and they still are. Our new study reveals fresh evidence of rhythmic pulses of molten rock rising beneath ...
Earth Sciences
Jul 20, 2025
0
67
Colossal volcanic eruptions like the kind that may have obliterated the dinosaurs more than 65 million years ago are caused by mantle plumes that rise from shifting underground mountains deep within the Earth's mantle, new ...
Earth Sciences
Jul 10, 2025
0
56
Geologists from the University of Hong Kong (HKU) have made a breakthrough in understanding how Earth's early continents formed during the Archean time, more than 2.5 billion years ago. Their findings, recently published ...
Earth Sciences
Jul 3, 2025
3
293
Research led by Earth scientists at the University of Southampton has uncovered evidence of rhythmic surges of molten mantle rock rising from deep within the Earth beneath Africa. These pulses are gradually tearing the continent ...
Earth Sciences
Jun 25, 2025
0
1185
An international team of geoscientists, chemists and climate scientists, has found evidence of a possible ghost plume beneath the territory of Oman. In their paper published in the journal Earth and Planetary Science Letters, ...
Sophisticated chemical analysis of volcanic gases from Kenya has provided the first evidence that a vast mass of deep Earth material lies beneath East Africa.
Earth Sciences
May 14, 2025
0
64
Geologists led by the University of Maryland and the University of Hawaiʻi finally connected the dots between one of the largest volcanic eruptions in Earth's history and its source deep beneath the Pacific Ocean.
Earth Sciences
Apr 30, 2025
0
62
What roils beneath Earth's surface may feel a world away, but the activity can help forge land masses that dictate ocean circulation, climate patterns, and even animal activity and evolution. In fact, scientists believe that ...
Earth Sciences
Apr 21, 2025
0
154
Mars is home to perhaps the greatest mystery of the solar system: the so-called Martian dichotomy, which has baffled scientists since it was discovered in the 1970s.
Planetary Sciences
Jan 18, 2025
0
78
