Research Information System
Earth and Planetary Science Letters, vol.679, 2026 (SCI-Expanded, Scopus)
The upwelling mantle plume beneath Iceland flows southwest down the Reykjanes Ridge. Several prominent V-shaped ridges (VSRs) and troughs (VSTs) extend obliquely from the ridge that are believed to result from pulses of hotter plume mantle. The intimate connection between heat and primordial He in the deep mantle means that the mantle beneath the Reykjanes Ridge should have elevated 3He/4He. A new high resolution He isotope study of basaltic glasses from southernmost Iceland (63°N) to 55°N along the Reykjanes Ridge demonstrates a broad peak of 3He/4He (16.0 Ra) centred around 60°N that coincides with the first topographic high (VSR-1). The magnitude of the He isotope anomaly broadly scales with the excess temperature inferred from crustal thickness. This supports the hypothesis that thickened oceanic crust is a consequence of a pulse of hotter mantle within the upwelling plume that flows down the Reykjanes Ridge. The along-ridge 3He/4He peak at 59-62°N is significantly longer (320 km) than the thickened oceanic crust of VSR-1 (60-70 km). This can most simply be explained if the hot mantle blob is surrounded by a high 3He/4He mantle carapace that has a temperature similar to the surrounding mantle. As helium diffusion is orders of magnitude slower than heat, this relationship can be most simply explained if the outer region of the hot, He-rich blob has lost heat to the surrounding mantle during transit from the core-mantle boundary, yet retained the deep mantle He isotope fingerprint.