How can I see where portions of an effective pom (in Maven) come from?

I'm working on a project in Maven and I'm trying to understand where certain settings are coming from in the effective pom. I want to trace backwards, so I can figure out which pom files need changing. I have modified my parent pom, my settings.xml file, and any other pom that seems to play a part, but the settings I want changed persist in the effective pom.

Is there a way to see where sections of the effective-pom come from? Or, can I at least see the "dependency" chain, if you will, of pom files that go into the effective pom?

Essentially I have a similar problem as this question: How to remove repositories from Effective POM but if there is a way to trace backwards that would really help me out.

Thanks!

This answer describes the various parts that create the effective POM.

You may try a variation of this answer to view the POM hierarchy (what you called the "dependency" chain). Add this config to the parent POM's <build><plugins> section (temporarily?) to see it.

<plugin>
    <groupId>org.codehaus.gmaven</groupId>
    <artifactId>groovy-maven-plugin</artifactId>
    <version>2.0</version>
    <executions>
        <execution>
            <id>echo-build-environment</id>
            <phase>validate</phase>
            <goals>
                <goal>execute</goal>
            </goals>
            <configuration>
                <source>
                <![CDATA[
                log.info("POM Hierarchy")
                def rootPom = project;
                while (rootPom.parent != null) {
                    log.info(rootPom.groupId + ':' + rootPom.artifactId + ':' + rootPom.version)
                    rootPom = rootPom.parent;
                }
                log.info(rootPom.groupId + ':' + rootPom.artifactId + ':' + rootPom.version)
                ]]>
                </source>
            </configuration>
        </execution>
    </executions>
</plugin>

(Note, in pure Groovy the log.info lines above could be written as

"${rootPom.groupId}:${rootPom.artifactId}:${rootPom.version}"

Groovy calls these GStrings. I know the gmaven plugin handles GStrings a little differently than plain Groovy but don't have time to look up the details right now so used regular string concatenation in the example.)