How do mantle plumes travel from the core of Earth to the crust?
The high values obtained when estimating the Rayleigh number for the mantle indicates that convection there is vigorous, and that convection is responsible for almost all the heat transported from the deep interior to the surface. Similar systems set up in the laboratory can develop 'plume-like' patterns of convective flow, and so mantle plumes are a physically plausible model of mantle convection too.