PT  - JOURNAL ARTICLE
AU  - Kerr, Andrew C.
TI  - The melting processes and composition of the North Atlantic (Iceland) plume: geochemical evidence from the Early Tertiary basalts
AID  - 10.1144/GSL.JGS.1995.152.01.16
DP  - 1995 Nov 01
TA  - Journal of the Geological Society
PG  - 975--978
VI  - 152
IP  - 6
4099  - http://jgs.lyellcollection.org/content/152/6/975.short
4100  - http://jgs.lyellcollection.org/content/152/6/975.full
SO  - Journal of the Geological Society1995 Nov 01; 152
AB  - Three successive geochemical magma types, which result from the decompression melting of the Iceland plume, can be identified throughout the North Atlantic Tertiary Igneous Province. Compared with Type 1, the geochemical signature of Type 2 can be interpreted in terms of shallower, more extensive melting, in response to lithospheric thinning. The chemistry of the youngest lavas and dykes (Type 3) suggests small degree melting at greater mantle depths than Type 2, perhaps below a lithospheric lid which had been re-thickened by underplating. The depleted (relative to Bulk Earth) geochemical signatures of Types 1 and 2 appear not to be derived from entrained upper MORB-source mantle, nor an immature HIMU plume. Rather, it is proposed that they are the melting products of an intrinsically depleted plume.