A fascinating, if not slightly terrifying, discovery has been made that suggests there is a Titanic-sized tree hidden underground that is feeding the Earth's volcanoes.
But let's provide some context, as you might need to channel your inner GCSE student to help grasp what's going on way down below and out of sight.
Réunion, a French island in the western Indian Ocean, is known for its rainforests, coral reefs and beaches.
It's also sitting on one of the world's largest, and most active, volcanic hotspots.
Hidden below the surface is an extensive mantle plume - columns of superheated rock - that reaches down to the Earth's core-mantle boundary.
If you can imagine a plume of smoke that rises up in a rough line before billowing out into a balloon-like head, this is somewhat similar to how you might visualise a mantle plume.
Just add a few thousand degrees for the additional temperature in order to melt the Earth's crust, and you've got it nailed.
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When the magma from these plumes reaches the Earth's surface, it eventually cools and forms a 'ground'. This goes part way towards explaining the Hawaiian islands, which are nowhere near the prolific string of volcanoes known as the 'Ring of Fire '.
However, scientists have uncovered more to this theory than single fiery columns below the surface.
Instead they have discovered an enormous network of mantle plumes, connected to one another in a tree-like fashion and spanning thousands of kilometres.
In the here and now, this plume is feeding one of the world's most active volcanoes, Piton de la Fournaise. You guessed it, nestled within the French island of Réunion.
But if you travel back in time, some 65 million years ago, this plume is thought to be the ignition point for a gigantic lava spall, creating an area known as the Deccan Traps.
When the plume was under what is now India, its geological tantrum was powerful enough to smother 1.5 million square kilometres of land. That's enough to bury Texas, California and Montana combined.
So while it's clear to see that this plume packs a punch (also driving an intensely volcanic region in East Africa) it's not clear just how extensive - and therefore how dangerous - it is.
A team of geophysicists and seismologists deployed set out to map the plume in 2012.
Nearly a decade later, their results set alight the theory that a titanic-sized tree exists below the surface of the Earth, connecting superheated branchlike structures together that have grown from a root estimated to be almost as old as Earth itself.
If you take a step back to consider such an aged natural piece of construction, you'll consider the fact that these volcanic tunnels have been building a canopy of tree plumes for billions of years, seemingly unnoticed.
To be honest, it's a little terrifying, with Netflix series Stranger Things and the 'upside down' oddly coming to mind.
The team published a report in Nature Geoscience that as these branches approach the crust, they seem to sprout smaller, vertically rising branches — super hot plumes that underlie known volcanic hot spots at the surface.
If we assume that these tunnel-like branches continue to spread, researchers might have a grasp on the future of the planet.
Study co-author Karin Sigloch said: "From looking at the core-mantle boundary, you can maybe predict where the oceans will open."
In fact, tens of millions of years from now, the theory is that the branch of mantle plume currently lurking below of Africa might send up an erupting blob so large that it could put the Deccan Traps to shame.
With that in mind, if we've not moved to another planet by then, perhaps migrating out of Africa is the second best bet.
