Ancient Magma (IMAGE)
Caption
Researchers have linked two giant plumes of hot rock deep within the earth to the plate motions that shape the continents. This new drawing of Earth's interior is based on one originally developed by study co-author Louise C. Kellogg of the University of California, Davis and her colleagues in 1999. A giant plume of hot rock called a "superpile" (orange) sits atop Earth's core (red), while the remnants of two subducted continental plates (blue) sink down on either side of it. A magma plume (orange with red outline) can be seen rising from the superpile to the surface as a hotspot that creates island chains such as Hawaii.
Credit
Image by the Cooperative Institute for Deep Earth Research (CIDER) collaboration, courtesy of Ohio State University.
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