The origin of gigantic magma eruptions that led to global climatic crises and extinctions of species has remained controversial. Two competing paradigms explain these cataclysms, either by the splitting of tectonic plates at the Earth’s surface or by the impacts of hot currents, called mantle plumes, from the planetary interior. A group of geochemists from Finland and Mozambique suggests they have found the smoking gun in the Karoo magma province. Their new article reports the discovery of primitive picrite lavas that may provide the first direct sample of a hot mantle plume underneath southern Africa in the Jurassic period.
Click here for original story, First direct evidence for a mantle plume origin of Jurassic flood basalts in southern Africa
Source: Phys.org