LIP: Large Igneous Province

This is something that came up more than once recently while reading about geology. In a few places on Earth there are these areas where millions of years ago massive amounts of igneous rock plumed up from the Earth’s magma. They are called large igneous provinces or LIPs. This is very different than regular land on Earth which is comprised of continental crust. Such crust subducts or abducts at plate boundaries and forms into continents. Regions where it gets contorted due to plate pressures, forming into mountainous formations, are called orogenous (from Greek oro, “mountian” + genous).

Many of the LIPs which exist on Earth have been split apart due to plate tectonics. One of the most well-known ones, the Central Atlantic Magmatic Province (CAMP), formed from one massive magmal plume that welled up on Pangaea but now is split between West Africa, Brazil, and North America.

Another interesting thing to consider is that it is not well understood how or when these huge plumes occur. When they occur, they are capable of causing very dramatic changes to Earth, some are possibly related to previous mass extinctions.