The Iceland Hotspot

 

Figure 1: A logical sketch of the uppermost 1000 km of a plume below Iceland, originating at the core mantle boundary, indicating its relation to Iceland and the surrounding North-Atlantic land areas.

The Iceland Hotspot is a large scale feature on the earth. Its root is an active mantle plume located below the Mid-Atlantic. It can be traced by seismic tomography through the entire mantle (Figure 1). Gravity anomalies show its effects over an area of several hundreds thousands km². Horizontal stress compressions with direction towards the plume area are indicated on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean  [#!Morgan:1981!#,#!Tryggvason/etal:1983!#,#!Wolfe/etal:1997!#,#!Bijwaard/Spakman:1999!#].

Although seismic tomography work has added significant information about the Iceland plume during recent years, it has introduced new questions which can only be answered by more observations.