Publication Date:
2022-05-26
Description:
Author Posting. © American Geophysical Union, 2019. This article is posted here by permission of American Geophysical Union for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Geochemistry, Geophysics, Geosystems 20, (2019): 5939-5967, doi: 10.1029/2019GC008654.
Description:
The Icelandic hotspot has erupted basaltic magma with the highest mantle‐derived 3He/4He over a period spanning much of the Cenozoic, from the early‐Cenozoic Baffin Island‐West Greenland flood basalt province (49.8 RA), to mid‐Miocene lavas in northwest Iceland (40.2 to 47.5 RA), to Pleistocene lavas in Iceland's neovolcanic zone (34.3 RA). The Baffin Island lavas transited through and potentially assimilated variable amounts of Precambrian continental basement. We use geochemical indicators sensitive to continental crust assimilation (Nb/Th, Ce/Pb, MgO) to identify the least crustally contaminated lavas. Four lavas, identified as “least crustally contaminated,” have high MgO (〉15 wt.%), and Nb/Th and Ce/Pb that fall within the mantle range (Nb/Th = 15.6 ± 2.6, Ce/Pb = 24.3 ± 4.3). These lavas have 87Sr/86Sr = 0.703008–0.703021, 143Nd/144Nd = 0.513094–0.513128, 176Hf/177Hf = 0.283265–0.283284, 206Pb/204Pb = 17.7560–17.9375, 3He/4He up to 39.9 RA, and mantle‐like δ18O of 5.03–5.21‰. The radiogenic isotopic compositions of the least crustally contaminated lavas are more geochemically depleted than Iceland high‐3He/4He lavas, a shift that cannot be explained by continental crust assimilation in the Baffin suite. Thus, we argue for the presence of two geochemically distinct high‐3He/4He components within the Iceland plume. Additionally, the least crustally contaminated primary melts from Baffin Island‐West Greenland have higher mantle potential temperatures (1510 to 1630 °C) than Siqueiros mid‐ocean ridge basalts (1300 to 1410 °C), which attests to a hot, buoyant plume origin for early Iceland plume lavas. These observations support the contention that the geochemically heterogeneous high‐3He/4He domain is dense, located in the deep mantle, and sampled by only the hottest plumes.
Description:
We acknowledge support from NSF EAR‐1624840 (to M.G.J.), NSF EAR‐1900652 (to M.G.J.), and NSF OCE‐1259218 (to M.D.K). We thank Don Francis for generously providing us access to his collection of Baffin Island lavas. We appreciate helpful discussion and feedback from Roberta Rudnick, Matthew Rioux, Douglas Wilson, and Keith Putirka. Jonathan Pinko is thanked for his help with sample preparation. Rick Carlson's continued generosity is gratefully acknowledged, especially discussions regarding 142Nd/144Nd evolution in the Earth. We acknowledge Al Hofmann for suggesting the use of Nb/Th, instead of Nb/U, in older rocks. We are grateful for helpful discussion with Maud Boyet while in Paris celebrating one of the author's birthdays. We thank Lotte Larsen and Asger Pedersen for advice and discussion regarding West Greenland samples. We thank C. Herzberg and G. Fitton for thorough and helpful reviews, which greatly improved this manuscript. All data published in this manuscript are available in the EarthChem data repository (https://doi.org/10.1594/IEDA/111373).
Description:
2020-05-07
Repository Name:
Woods Hole Open Access Server
Type:
Article
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