Cambridge scientists have cracked a 60-million-year-old mystery about why volcanic eruptions once spread so widely across the North Atlantic.
A hot rock plume under Iceland once triggered massive eruptions from Scotland to Greenland, long before the Atlantic Ocean formed.
Dr Raffaele Bonadio from the University of Cambridge found that thin tectonic plates helped spread volcanic magma across vast areas.
Using seismic tomography (like a CT scan for Earth), Dr Bonadio mapped hidden plate structures beneath Britain and Ireland.
They developed seismic thermography to reveal how temperature and plate thickness affect where ancient volcanoes formed.
Volcanoes in Scotland and Ireland formed where the Earth's outer shell, called the lithosphere, was thinner and weaker, letting magma rise easily.
The hot magma was funnelled through weak spots in the tectonic plates, spreading out over thousands of kilometres, explains Dr Bonadio.
Some past theories said mantle plumes weren’t involved, but this study shows plume material was simply re-routed to thinner plate zones.
Prof Sergei Lebedev notes that the same thin zones still affect today’s earthquakes and may offer geothermal energy potential.
Dr Bonadio and Prof Lebedev now aim to use their methods to map global geothermal hotspots, helping assess clean energy sources worldwide.
Read more at Sciencedaily.com. Research published in Nature Communications.