A MYSTERIOUS underground heat source in Mali has been found out.
Researchers once suggested the heat was coming from the hydrothermal activity of budding volcanoes. And when surface temperatures rose recently, locals feared an eruption. But West Africa is an old stable part of the continent without a likely source of volcanism.
So geologists from Norway and Mali took a closer look by digging trenches in the hot spots, where temperatures peak at 765 °C. Instead of volcanic activity they found a layer of peat from ancient lake deposits burning less than 1 metre below the surface (Geology, vol 31,…
