Huge lava plume

A paper in Earth and Planetary Science Letters ( see www.physorg.com/print232953705.html) has found evidence of a lava plume on now widely distributed pieces of the earth's crust that at the time are thought to date from when all of them were joined together in what is geologically known as Gondwanaland (a combination of South America, Africa, India, Antarctica and Australia). The lava plume, it is suggested, broke apart Gondwanaland – but what event might have caused an outwelling of lava on such a scale?