Plumes of fluid are often observed in nature to interact with stratified shear layers. Examples of this include chimney plumes hitting inversion-layer ceilings; sewage plumes impinging on unmixed fresh/saltwater interfaces; descending plumes of cold water formed at ice-leads interacting with the oceanic thermocline; and volcano plumes interacting with atmospheric interfaces. Controlled laboratory studies of these phenomena have not previously been described in the literature, and as a result there is a lack of understanding regarding their morphology and dynamics. Thus, a novel set of experiments is described here in which the behaviour of a turbulent plume is observed in the presence of a two-layer ambient. The lower layer, into which the plume initially emerges, is quiescent and at a relatively high density. The upper layer is forced to flow uniformly across the top of the lower layer, and has a lower density. The flow of the resulting plume is characterised by (a) its vertical and lateral spreading in the lower layer; (b) the nature of its extension upstream and downstream at the interface; and (c) the extent to which it penetrates into the upper layer. The behaviour is found to be governed by three non-dimensional parameters: the initial gradient Richardson number of the interface Ri(G), the ratio of the upper layer crossflow speed to the speed of the plume when it first impinges on the interface U(F)/U(Pl), and the ratio of the plume Monin-Obukhov lengthscale to the lower layer depth L(MO)/H(L). Regime diagrams are presented showing the effects of changing these parameters on the plume flow, quantitative relationships are determined, and practical applications of the results are considered. (C) 2000 The Japan Society of Fluid Mechanics and Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.