Abstract Vesteris Seamount is a large Quaternary intraplate submarine volcano in the SW Greenland Sea, about 1,000 km NE of Iceland and 300 km NW of the Mohn's spreading ridge, whose mode of formation remains unsolved. We present geochemical data for new samples dredged from the Vesteris edifice, including major, trace elements and Sr‐Nd‐Pb‐Hf isotopes. The isotopic characteristics of the alkaline lavas, covering the basanite/tephrite to benmoreite range, indicate the involvement of depleted and enriched mantle components. The source is dominated by the depleted mantle (85%–90%) and a deep enriched component possibly supplied by the Iceland Plume (IP) (10%–15%). Additional source enrichment was due to recycled crust and sub‐continental lithospheric mantle, as suggested by Hf isotopes (0.283147 ± 0.000005) measured for the first time in Vesteris lavas and by a decoupling in Pb isotopes evidenced by relatively low‐radiogenic 207 Pb/ 204 Pb (15.510) and high‐radiogenic 208 Pb/ 204 Pb (38.554) with respect to the Northern Hemisphere Reference Line. We interpret the geochemical results using existing knowledge about the regional lithospheric and upper mantle structure. Our findings suggest that a deep (ca. 420–320 km) mantle anomaly, with seismological characteristics of the Iceland mantle plume, extends from East Greenland to the north of Jan Mayen Fracture Zone. The regional lithospheric thinning toward the Greenland Basin enabled the melting events that produced the Vesteris seamount. This lateral NNE‐directed flow lobe of the Iceland plume may have carved and transferred enriched components from the continental lithospheric margin of Greenland north of Scoresby Sund toward the Vesteris source.
Abstract The distribution of water concentrations in the oceanic upper mantle has drastic influence on its melting, rheology, and electrical and thermal conductivities and yet is primarily known indirectly from analyses of OIB and MORB. Here, actual mantle samples, eight peridotite xenoliths from Salt Lake Crater (SLC) and one from Pali in Oahu in Hawaii were analyzed by FTIR. Water contents of orthopyroxene, clinopyroxene, and the highest measured in olivine are 116–222, 246–442, and 10–26 ppm weight H 2 O, respectively. Although pyroxene water contents correlate with indices of partial melting, they are too high to be explained by simple melting modeling. Mantle‐melt interaction modeling reproduces best the SLC data. These peridotites represent depleted oceanic mantle older than the Pacific lithosphere that has been refertilized by nephelinite melts containing <5 weight % H 2 O. Metasomatism in the Hawaiian peridotites resulted in an apparent decoupling of water and LREE that can be reconciled via assimilation and fractional crystallization. Calculated bulk‐rock water contents for SLC (50–96 ppm H 2 O) are on the low side of that of the MORB source (50–200 ppm H 2 O). Preceding metasomatism, the SLC peridotites must have been even drier, with a water content similar to that of the Pali peridotite (45 ppm H 2 O), a relatively unmetasomatized fragment of the Pacific lithosphere. Moreover, our data show that the oceanic mantle lithosphere above plumes is not necessarily enriched in water. Calculated viscosities using olivine water contents allow to estimate the depth of the lithosphere‐asthenosphere boundary beneath Hawaii at ∼90 km.
