On the latest episode of things that weren’t on our 2025 bingo cards: somewhere 125 miles under our feet, a molten blob the size of Maine is slowly strolling towards New York City, and geologists are both intrigued and slightly baffled.

Nicknamed the Northern Appalachian Anomaly (NAA) , this underground mass of abnormally hot rock is about 220 miles wide and seems to be gliding its way southwest beneath the Eastern U.S., moving at a pace of 12 miles per million years. Yes, per million years.

At that speed, you’ve got time to panic (though you shouldn’t). Or retire.

What Is This Mysterious Blob?

Well, what this mysterious blob definitely isn’t is leftover magma from when North America broke away from Africa–that was 180 million years ago, says geoscientist Tom Gernon.

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