A vast blob of hot rock moving slowly beneath the Appalachian Mountains in the northeastern US is now thought to be the result of a divorce between Greenland and Canada some 80 million years ago.

A study by an international team of researchers challenges the existing consensus in both geographical and chronological terms. It was previously thought the breaking up of the North American and African continents was responsible, some 180 million years ago.

To test their assertion, the researchers used a combination of existing data and computer modeling to link the hot blob to a geological formation in the Labrador Sea in the North Atlantic dated to around 85-80 million years ago.

"This thermal upwelling has long been a puzzling feature of North American geology," says earth scientis

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