Deep mantle plume origin of oceanic intraplate volcanism (opens in new tab)

Volcanism far from tectonic plate margins provides important insights into the dynamic evolution of Earth’s interior. On oceanic plates, an age-progressive volcanic seamount chain is generally attributed to the plate moving over a mantle plume. However, many seamounts are spatially scattered without clear age progression, so their relationship to deep mantle processes has been contentious. Here we show from numerical modelling that all seamounts—with or without age progression—are produced by...