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A long-hidden plume of magma beneath Oman’s Salma Plateau may have played a surprising role in shaping the Indian subcontinent’s ancient journey, researchers report. This \u201cghost\u201d plume \u2014 hot material trapped beneath Earth’s thick crust \u2014 cannot erupt but may have shifted the Indian tectonic plate’s course during its dramatic collision with Eurasia tens of millions of years ago. First detailed in the journal Earth and Planetary Science Letters, the finding reveals a new class of deep mantle plumes that shape continents silently, without the typical signature of surface volcanoes.<\/p>\n
As per a Live Science report<\/a>, the plume was detected using seismic data from Oman’s dense sensor network. Under\u2002the leadership of geophysicist Simone Pilia, the group discovered that the plume altered the way sound waves moved through Earth’s layers, which in turn pointed to its presence. Unlike most mantle plumes, which rise and erupt through the oceanic plates, Dani is amagmatic and does not create surface eruptions because of the thick continental crust above the plume. This\u2002finding means that there may potentially be many hidden plumes lurking beneath continents.<\/p>\n The Dani\u2002plume is the first such non-eruptive plume beneath a continental plate, which is broadening scientists’ view of how mantle dynamics unfold out of sight. The researchers also calculated the movement of the Indian plate and found that\u2002it took a significant turn between 40 and 25 million years ago, which might have been affected by the shear stress created by the plume. The plume’s effects on topography\u2002are expected to be small regionally, but its geological role could be relatively large.<\/p>\n