Mantle plumes are mysterious upwellings of molten rock believed to transmit heat from the core-mantle boundary to the Earth’s surface, far from the edges of tectonic plates.

The land beneath the former Aral Sea in Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan is rising and will continue to do so for many decades. Now, scientists have an explanation that involves the sea drying up.

The two giant blobs — one beneath the Pacific Ocean and one beneath Africa — lie at the boundary between Earth's mantle and its outer core, some 1,900 miles (3,000 kilometers) beneath the surface.