Seismic evidence for a lower-mantle origin of the Iceland plume

Yang Shen (), Sean C. Solomon, Ingi Th. Bjarnason and Cecily J. Wolfe
Additional contact information
Yang Shen: Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution
Sean C. Solomon: Carnegie Institution of Washington
Ingi Th. Bjarnason: Science Institute, University of Iceland
Cecily J. Wolfe: Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution

Nature, 1998, vol. 395, issue 6697, 62-65

Abstract: Abstract Iceland, one of the most thoroughly investigated hotspots1,2,3, is generally accepted to be the manifestation of an upwelling mantle plume4. Yet whether the plume originates from the lower mantle or from a convective instability at a thermal boundary layer between the upper and lower mantle near 660 km depth5,6 remains unconstrained. Tomographic inversions of body-wave delay times show that low seismic velocities extend to at least 400 km depth beneath central Iceland7,8, but cannot resolve structure at greater depth. Here we report lateral variations in the depths of compressional-to-shear wave conversions at the two seismic discontinuities marking the top and bottom of the mantle transition zone beneath Iceland. We find that the transition zone is 20 km thinner than in the average Earth9 beneath central and southern Iceland, but is of normal thickness beneath surrounding areas, a result indicative of a hot and narrow plume originating from the lower mantle.

Date: 1998
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/25714 Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:nature:v:395:y:1998:i:6697:d:10.1038_25714

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/

DOI: 10.1038/25714

Access Statistics for this article

Nature is currently edited by Magdalena Skipper

More articles in Nature from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().