Study on mantle plume activity and its derivative outcrops has become an important way to unravel the deep geodynamic process of the Earth. It is widely accepted that the upwelling of mantle plume is closely associated with LIPs (Large Igneous Provinces), breakups of supercontinent and mass extinctions. In the recent decades, much advance has been achieved in understanding the movement and origin of identified upwelling mantle plume, of which the hypothesis of time-dependent mantle plume model provide a new thought for its evolution and plume-related magmas. This paper summarizes the major progresses in the identification and evolution of mantle plume during the past decades as below: ①The time-space scale of mantle plume and its relationship with hotspot, flood basalts, surface uplift; ② The origin of the tremendous heat and mass transferred by mantle plume to the Earth's surface; ③The fundamental conditions for upwelling and temporal evolution of mantle plume. Additionally, some of issues are controversy on mantle plume as the following aspects: ①Active versus passive upwelling? ②Origin from upper mantle-lower mantle boundary or the core-mantle boundary? ③Original or mixed sources represented by OIBs and CFBs? The answers to these issues will naturally be crucial to understand the coupling between core and mantle, mantle convection model and surface mass and heat responses induced by deep geodynamic processes.