EVERYDAY SCIENCE

Detailed explanation-1: -Mantle plumes are hypothesized columns of hot mantle rocks that rise through the mantle from the mantle-core boundary to the base of the lithosphere. The lower lithosphere rocks are heated by the plumes and melt to form hot spots.

Detailed explanation-2: -Encyclopedic Entry Vocabulary. A hot spot is an area on Earth that exists over a mantle plume. A mantle plume is an area under the rocky outer layer of Earth, called the crust, where magma is hotter than surrounding magma.

Detailed explanation-3: -Igneous rocks (from the Latin word for fire) form when hot, molten rock crystallizes and solidifies. The melt originates deep within the Earth near active plate boundaries or hot spots, then rises toward the surface.

Detailed explanation-4: -The melted rock, known as magma, often pushes through cracks in the crust to form volcanoes. Hot spot volcanism is unique because it does not occur at the boundaries of Earth’s tectonic plates, where all other volcanism occurs. Instead it occurs at abnormally hot centers known as mantle plumes.

Detailed explanation-5: -A mantle plume is a buoyant mass of material in the mantle, which rises because of its buoyancy. The existence of mantle plumes in Earth was first suggested by J. Tuzo Wilson (1963) as an explanation of oceanic island chains, such as the Hawaiian-Emperor chain, which change progressively in age along the chain (Fig.