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Click here to go to News & Discussion of this page Iceland is commonly considered to be the surface expression of a plume originating at the core-mantle boundary. Likewise, Paleocene magmatism in the NE Atlantic (NEA) is typically ascribed to thermal effects from the proto-Iceland plume, which f...
| Main Authors: | , , |
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| Other Authors: | |
| Format: | Text |
| Language: | English |
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| Online Access: | http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.511.446 http://www.mantleplumes.org/WebpagePDFs/Iceland2.pdf |
| Summary: | Click here to go to News & Discussion of this page Iceland is commonly considered to be the surface expression of a plume originating at the core-mantle boundary. Likewise, Paleocene magmatism in the NE Atlantic (NEA) is typically ascribed to thermal effects from the proto-Iceland plume, which furthermore is often invoked as a decisive factor in NEA breakup. We argue that neither the present-day Iceland anomaly, nor its supposed ancient manifestation, is related to a deeply-rooted plume. We also propose that NEA breakup can be explained as a natural outcome of plate tectonics, not requiring any plume weakening of the lithosphere. In contrast to the common perception that the Greenland-Faroes Ridge is a hot spot track related to the Iceland plume, we consider it a symmetric construction that formed above an upper-mantle upwelling maintained at the plate boundary. We relate the two pulses of NEA magmatism to separate tectonic phases of North Atlantic breakup: Early Paleocene magmatism (c. 62-58 Ma) was governed by a short-lived 1. attempt at seeking a new rift path, intermediate in time and space between the |
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