mantle plume
Sign in to saveAlso known as Thermal Anomalies
upwelling of abnormally hot rock within the Earth's mantle
~25 min read
Encyclopedic overview
A superplume generated by cooling processes in the mantle (LVZ = low-velocity zone)
A mantle plume is a proposed mechanism of convection within the Earth's mantle, hypothesized to explain anomalous volcanism. Because the plume head partially melts on reaching shallow depths, a plume is often invoked as the cause of volcanic hotspots, such as Hawaii or Iceland, and large igneous provinces such as the Deccan and Siberian Traps. Some such volcanic regions lie far from tectonic plate boundaries, while others represent unusually large-volume volcanism near plate boundaries.
Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “mantle plume” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.