Pollutants released to the ground can work their way down into the groundwater, leading to groundwater pollution. The resulting body of polluted water within an aquifer is called a plume, with its migrating edges called plume fronts. Plumes are used to locate, map, and measure water pollution within the aquifers total body of water, and plume fronts to determine directions and speed of the contaminations spreading in it.
Plumes are of considerable importance in the atmospheric dispersion modelling of air pollution. A classic work on the subject of air pollution plumes is that by Gary Briggs.
A thermal plume is one which is generated by gas rising above a heat source. The gas rises because thermal expansion makes warm gas less dense than the surrounding cooler gas.