Catching mantle plumes by their magma tails

Hawaii’s volcanos stand as silent sentinels. They guard the secret of how they formed, thousands of miles away from where the edges of tectonic plates clash and generate magma for most volcanos. A 2017 Nature study by Jones et al. found the best clues yet of the origin of Hawaii’s volcanos through simulation of a shift in the Pacific plate three million years ago. What remains elusive is conclusive evidence that mantle plumes exist.