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A continuous 55-million-year record of transient mantle plume activity beneath Iceland

Nature Geoscience volume 7, pages 914–919 (2014)Cite this article

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Abstract

In the North Atlantic Ocean, a mid-ocean ridge bisects the Icelandic mantle plume, and provides a window into its temporal evolution1,2,3. V-shaped ridges of thick oceanic crust observed south of Iceland are thought to record pulses of upwelling within the plume4,5,6,7. Specifically, excess crust is thought to form during the quasi-periodic generation of hot solitary waves triggered by thermal instabilities in the mantle8. Here we use seismic reflection data to show that V-shaped ridges have formed over the past 55 million years—providing the longest record of plume periodicity of its kind. We find evidence for minor, but systematic, asymmetric formation of crust, due to migration of the mid-ocean ridge with respect to the underlying plume. We also find changes in periodicity: from 55 to 35 million years ago, the V-shaped ridges form every 3 million years or so and reflect small fluctuations in plume temperature of about 5–10 °C. From 35 million years ago, the periodicity changes to about 8 million years and reflects changes in mantle temperature of 25–30 °C. We suggest that this change in periodicity is probably caused by perturbations in the thermal state at the plume source, either at the mantle-transition zone or core–mantle boundary.

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Figure 1: Location of seismic experiment.
Figure 2: Interpreted seismic images.
Figure 3: Analysis of VSR chronology and asymmetric crustal accretion.
Figure 4: Cut-away schematic diagram showing plume geometry.

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Acknowledgements

This research was supported by NERC Grant NE/G007632/1 and by the Girdler Fund, University of Cambridge. We thank the Master, crew and technicians of RRS James Cook Cruise JC50 for their dedicated professionalism. We are grateful to J. Rudge for assisting with boundary layer scaling analysis and to M. Falder for pointing out an error. Earth Sciences contribution esc.3118.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Earth Sciences, University of Cambridge, Cambridge CB3 0EZ, UK

    Ross Parnell-Turner, Nicky White & John Maclennan

  2. National Oceanography Centre Southampton, University of Southampton, European Way Southampton SO14 3ZH, UK,

    Tim Henstock & Bramley Murton

  3. School of Geography, Earth and Environmental Sciences, University of Birmingham, B15 2TT, UK

    Stephen M. Jones

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  1. Ross Parnell-Turner
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  2. Nicky White
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  4. Bramley Murton
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  5. John Maclennan
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  6. Stephen M. Jones
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Contributions

This project was conceived and managed by N.W. and co-authors. R.P-T. processed and interpreted seismic data with guidance from N.W. and T.H. The paper was written by R.P-T. and N.W. with contributions from co-authors.

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Correspondence to Ross Parnell-Turner or Nicky White.

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The authors declare no competing financial interests.

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Parnell-Turner, R., White, N., Henstock, T. et al. A continuous 55-million-year record of transient mantle plume activity beneath Iceland. Nature Geosci 7, 914–919 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1038/ngeo2281

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