Hotspot, or HOTSPOT, is an ICDP drilling project that targeted the Snake River Plain in Idaho, along three drill sites with five holes to capture a complete record of plume-related volcanism along its length. The plain lies in a relatively quiet, young part of North America and sits near Yellowstone, where a deep-seated mantle plume has fed volcanic activity as the plate moved over it. By drilling, scientists could sample rocks formed by this hot mantle below, something that can’t be studied from exposed outcrops alone. From 2010 to 2012, they recovered thousands of meters of rock core, with detailed chemical and stratigraphic data across space and time, focusing on rocks dating from the late Pliocene to the Pleistocene. The goal was to understand how mantle plumes start and evolve, how heat and magma travel through the crust, and what this reveals about Earth’s interior, volcanic risks, climate, and continental evolution.