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When you reached the edge of the Nazca Plate there were flames licking up from the abyss.

However, none of these existing theories explains the new seamount, which is nowhere near any known mantle plumes and lies hundreds of kilometers from the boundaries of the Nazca plate on which it sits, says Colin Devey, a volcanologist at the Geomar Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research Kiel.

By using data from previous studies that used seismic techniques to image Earth’s upper mantle, the researchers found an unusually high concentration of magma at about 70 kilometers below this part of the Nazca plate.

The epicentre of the earthquake was located 35km off the coast of Casma and Chimbote on the Pacific Ocean, where the Nazca Plate meets the South American Plate.

In the southern Ecuador to central Peru region, the Nazca plate subducts at a very shallow 10° angle for hundreds of kilometers before it begins a steeper descent into the mantle.