Reaction to Mantle Plume Discovery

Seismic waves (red and blue-green lines) passing up through the lower mantle may have detected a plume (blue-green column).

According to a review by Richard A. Kerr in Science magazine, "Mantle plumes--tall columns of hot rock rising to feed volcanic hot spots like Hawaii--are either fundamental components of Earth's heat-shedding machinery that reshape the surface and perhaps trigger mass extinctions, or they are the figments of some geophysicists' imaginations." His review explores the reactions of the scientific community to an article by Seismo Lab scientists Daoyuan Sun, Don Helmberger, and Michael Gurnis that was published in Geophysical Research Letters on May 4, 2010. In the article, Sun et al. posited the existence of a mantle plume under southern Africa.

Click here to read Science magazine's review.

Click here for the article published in Geophysical Research Letters.