What are Mantle Plumes?
Mantle plumes are powerful geological events that consist of a large bulb of magma from the mantle, hundreds of miles across, rising into the upper crust and triggering major volcanism. Visually, a mantle plume would look similar to the rising shapes in a lava lamp. Mantle plumes may last for more than a million years, producing a phenomenon called a hotspot. Mantle plumes are believed to be a primary mechanism for cooling the Earth’s core, which is a superheated ball of solid iron and nickel. Mantle plumes are also a method of cooling the mantle, but it is believed to be a distant second to heat loss at the boundaries of tectonic plates. Evidence for mantle plumes comes in the form of geophysical models of the Earth’s interior, as well as persistent hotspots which stay stationary with respect to the rest of the mantle, but move with respect to the crust as the tectonic plates slowly drift over millions of years. This drifting effect is responsible for the Hawaiian-Emperor seamount cha
