There are a large number of volcanoes on Earth that are active, and most of them are located in the so-called “Ring of Fire,” or the Circum-Pacific Belt. But what keeps the volcanoes outside the Ring of Fire burning?

An international team of researchers has mapped out a gigantic subterranean tree-like flow that fuels many volcanoes on Earth, and this plume could be Titanic in scale.

The massive plume looks to go to Réunion, a small French island in the Indian Ocean that also seems to be home to Piton de la Fournaise, or “peak of the furnace,” one of the world’s most active volcanoes.

Scientists had thought this plume existed before, but they had never been able to see it seismologically. That is, until an international team led by Maria Tsekhmistrenko of Oxford University used data from geological “telescopes” that measure the vibrations of the planet to make a map of this huge “volcanic tree.”

Sanne Cottaar, a seismologist at the University of Cambridge, told Quanta Magazine, “People have had a longer history and an easier time actually looking up at the stars. Looking down has actually been quite challenging.”

The map was turned into a precise 3D model by the magazine.

The vast underground tree feeds not just Piton de la Fournaise, but also a few more volcanoes in East Africa, some 3,000 kilometers away.

Furthermore, the Titanic-sized plume appears to be igniting the fires of Hawaiian volcanoes, which are located far from the well-known Ring of Fire, which feeds the majority of the world’s active volcanoes.

The huge plume erupted 65 million years ago, igniting the Deccan Traps region. The area has enough seismic potential to encompass 1.5 million square kilometers of land beneath what is now India.

Image Credit: Getty

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