Continental crust beneath southeast Iceland

• Published in: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
• Main Authors: Torsvik, Trond H., Amundsen, Hans E. F., Trønnes, Reidar G., Doubrovine, Pavel V., Gaina, Carmen, Kusznir, Nick J., Steinberger, Bernhard, Corfu, Fernando, Ashwal, Lewis D., Griffin, William L., Werner, Stephanie C., Jamtveit, Bjørn
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Published: National Academy of Sciences 2015
• Subjects: PNAS Plus; Greenland; Iceland
• Online Access: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4403175/; http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25825769; https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1423099112

The Iceland hotspot is widely thought to be the surface expression of a deep mantle plume from the core–mantle boundary that can be traced back in time at least 62 My. However, some lavas contain continental material, which has previously been proposed to have been recycled through the plume. Here, we argue that the plume split off a sliver of continent from Greenland in the Early Eocene. This sliver is now located beneath southeast Iceland where it locally contaminates some of the plume-derived magmas.