A mantle plume is an upwelling of abnormally hot rock within the Earth's mantle.

As the heads of mantle plumes can partly melt when they reach shallow depths, they are thought to be the cause of volcanic centers known as hotspots and probably also to have caused flood basalts.

It is a secondary way that Earth loses heat, much less important in this regard than is heat loss at plate margins.

Some scientists think that plate tectonics cools the mantle, and mantle plumes cool the core.

Two of the most well known locations that fit the mantle plume theory are Hawaii and Iceland as both have volcanic activity..

For more information about the topic Mantle plume, read the full article at Wikipedia.org, or see the following related articles:

Hotspot (geology) — In geology, a hotspot is a location on the Earth's surface that has experienced active volcanism for a long period of time. Hotspots were thought to ...  > read more

Lithosphere — The lithosphere is the solid outermost shell of a rocky planet. On the Earth, the lithosphere includes the crust and the uppermost layer of the ...  > read more

Mid-ocean ridge — A mid-ocean ridge or mid-oceanic ridge is an underwater mountain range, formed by plate tectonics. This uplifting of the ocean floor occurs when ...  > read more

Crust (geology) — In geology, a crust is the outermost layer of a planet. The crust of the Earth is composed of a great variety of igneous, metamorphic, and ...  > read more

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