Hot and deep

摘要

The landscape of Afar in Ethiopia (pictured) is tortured, because underlying tectonic plates are pulling apart from each other. Such rifting can lead to continental break-up, and is often accompanied by voluminous magmatism - the production of large amounts of melt. In this issue, Ferguson etal. report the cause of this magmatism in Afar(D. J. Ferguson etal. Nature 490, 70-73; 2013). The authors developed a model of magmatism in the region using geochemical data from lavas that erupted along the rift. They conclude that melting is generated at great depths - 80 kilometres or more - and is driven by an unusually hot region of the mantle.