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

Nature volume 395, pages 62–65 (1998)Cite this article

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.

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Figure 1: Variations in the depths of the 410- and 660-km phase boundaries can distinguish three generalized, end-member models for mantle plumes, here depicted schematically.
Figure 2: The geometry of our experiment.
Figure 3: Images of P410s and P660s in stacked receiver functions and P660s-P410s differential times indicate an anomalously thin transition zone beneath central and southern Iceland. a, Locations of the profiles of receiver function stacks.
Figure 4: Map view of differences between the observed P660s-P410s differential times and the value predicted for the iasp91 model9 underscores the localized nature of the anomaly.

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Acknowledgements

We thank Bjorn Bjarnason, Birgir Bjarnason, B. Brandsdóttir, H. Brynjlfósson, K.Egilsson, G. Gudmundson, E. Hannesson, T. Hardarson, L. Helgason, B. Ingimundarson, H. Jónsson, E. Kjartansson, A. Kuehnel, R. Kuehnel, P. Sigurdsson, R. Thrudmarsson, and the staff of the National Electric Company of Iceland (Landsvirkjun) for assistance with field operations; the IRIS-DMS for making available data from GSN station BORG; G. M. Purdy, D. W. Forsyth, R. S. Detrick, and J. A. Collins for encouragement and advice in the early stages of this work; S. van der Lee for providing software; D. E. James, E. M. Parmentier, I. S. Sacks, and P. G. Silver for discussions, and G. Helffrich and P. van Keken for reviews. This work was supported by the US NSF.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Geology and Geophysics, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, Woods Hole, 02543, Massachusetts, USA

    Yang Shen & Cecily J. Wolfe

  2. Department of Terrestrial Magnetism, Carnegie Institution of Washington, 5241 Broad Branch Road, NW, 20015, Washington DC, USA

    Sean C. Solomon

  3. Science Institute, University of Iceland, Reykjavik, Iceland

    Ingi Th. Bjarnason

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Correspondence to Yang Shen.

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Shen, Y., Solomon, S., Bjarnason, I. et al. Seismic evidence for a lower-mantle origin of the Iceland plume. Nature 395, 62–65 (1998). https://doi.org/10.1038/25714

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