[1] Using a combination of body wave and surface wave data sets to reveal the mantle plume and plume head, this study presents a tomographic image of the mantle structure beneath Iceland to 400 km depth. Data comes primarily from the PASSCAL-HOTSPOT deployment of 30 broadband instruments over a period of 2 years, and is supplemented by data from the SIL and ICEMELT networks. Three sets of relative teleseismic body wave arrival times are generated through cross correlation: S and SKS arrivals at 0.03-0.1 Hz, and P and PKIKP arrivals at 0.03-0.1 and 0.8-2.0 Hz. Prior to inversion the crustal portion of the travel time anomalies is removed using the crustal model ICECRTb. This step has a significant effect on the mantle velocity variations imaged down to a depth of $250 km. Inversion of relative arrival times only provides information on lateral velocity variations. Surface waves are therefore used to provide absolute velocity information for the uppermost mantle beneath Iceland. The average wave number for the Love wave fundamental mode at 0.020 and 0.024 Hz is measured and used to invert for the average S velocity. Combination of the body wave and surface wave information reveals a predominantly horizontal low-velocity anomaly extending from the Moho down to $250 km depth, interpreted as a plume head. Below the plume head a near-cylindrical lowvelocity anomaly with a radius of $100 km and peak V P and V S anomalies of À2% and À4%, respectively, extends down to the maximum depth of resolution at 400 km. Within the plume head, in the uppermost mantle above the core of the plume, there is a relatively high velocity with a maximum V P and V S anomaly of +2%. This high-velocity anomaly may be the result of the extreme degree of melt extraction necessary to generate the thick (46 km) crust in central Iceland. Comparison of the plume volumetric flux implied by our images, the crustal generation rate, and the degree of melting suggested by rare earth element inversions, suggests that (1) mantle material must be flowing horizontally away from the plume core faster than the overlying lithosphere and (2)

A M = 5 earthquake in Iceland has been successfully ‘stress forecast’ by using variations in time delays of seismic shear wave splitting to assess the time and magnitude at which stress‐modified microcracking reaches fracture criticality within the stressed volume where strain is released. Local investigations suggested the approximate location of the forecast earthquake. We report the criteria on which this stress forecast was based.

[1] Through combination of surface wave and body wave constraints we derive a threedimensional (3-D) crustal S velocity model and Moho map for Iceland. It reveals a vast plumbing system feeding mantle plume melt into upper crustal magma chambers where crustal formation takes place. The method is based on the partitioned waveform inversion to which we add additional observations. Love waves from six local events recorded on the HOTSPOT-SIL networks are fitted, S n travel times from the same events measured, previous observations of crustal thickness are added, and all three sets of constraints simultaneously inverted for our 3-D model. In the upper crust (0-15 km) an elongated low-velocity region extends along the length of the Northern, Eastern and Western Neovolcanic Zones. The lowest velocities (À7%) are found at 5-10 km below the two most active volcanic complexes: Hekla and Bárdarbunga-Grímsvötn. In the lower crust (>15 km) the low-velocity region can be represented as a vertical cylinder beneath central Iceland. The low-velocity structure is interpreted as the thermal halo of pipe work which connects the region of melt generation in the uppermost mantle beneath central Iceland to active volcanoes along the neovolcanic zones. Crustal thickness in Iceland varies from 15-20 km beneath the Reykjanes Peninsula, Krafla and the extinct Snaefellsnes rift zone, to 46 km beneath central Iceland. The average crustal thickness is 29 km. The variations in thickness can be explained in terms of the temporal variation in plume productivity over the last $20 Myr, the Snaefellsnes rift zone being active during a minimum in plume productivity. Variations in crustal thickness do not depart significantly from an isostatically predicted crustal thickness. The best fit linear isostatic relation implies an average density jump of 4% across the Moho. Rare earth element inversions of basalt compositions on Iceland suggest a melt thickness (i.e., crustal thickness) of 15-20 km, given passive upwelling. The observed crustal thickness of up to 46 km implies active fluxing of source material through the melt zone by the mantle plume at up to 3 times the passive rate.

Summary We report the results of the highest‐resolution teleseismic tomography study yet performed of the upper mantle beneath Iceland. The experiment used data gathered by the Iceland Hotspot Project, which operated a 35‐station network of continuously recording, digital, broad‐band seismometers over all of Iceland 1996–1998. The structure of the upper mantle was determined using the ACH damped least‐squares method and involved 42 stations, 3159 P‐wave, and 1338 S‐wave arrival times, including the phases P, pP, sP, PP, SP, PcP, PKIKP, pPKIKP, S, sS, SS, SKS and Sdiff. Artefacts, both perceptual and parametric, were minimized by well‐tested smoothing techniques involving layer thinning and offset‐and‐averaging. Resolution is good beneath most of Iceland from ∼60 km depth to a maximum of ∼450 km depth and beneath the Tjornes Fracture Zone and near‐shore parts of the Reykjanes ridge. The results reveal a coherent, negative wave‐speed anomaly with a diameter of 200–250 km and anomalies in P‐wave speed, VP, as strong as −2.7 per cent and in S‐wave speed, VS, as strong as −4.9 per cent. The anomaly extends from the surface to the limit of good resolution at ∼450 km depth. In the upper ∼250 km it is centred beneath the eastern part of the Middle Volcanic Zone, coincident with the centre of the ∼100 mGal Bouguer gravity low over Iceland, and a lower crustal low‐velocity zone identified by receiver functions. This is probably the true centre of the Iceland hotspot. In the upper ∼200 km, the low‐wave‐speed body extends along the Reykjanes ridge but is sharply truncated beneath the Tjornes Fracture Zone. This suggests that material may flow unimpeded along the Reykjanes ridge from beneath Iceland but is blocked beneath the Tjornes Fracture Zone. The magnitudes of the VP, VS and VP/VS anomalies cannot be explained by elevated temperature alone, but favour a model of maximum temperature anomalies < 200 K, along with up to ∼2 per cent of partial melt in the depth range ∼100–300 km beneath east‐central Iceland. The anomalous body is approximately cylindrical in the top 250 km but tabular in shape at greater depth, elongated north–south and generally underlying the spreading plate boundary. Such a morphological change and its relationship to surface rift zones are predicted to occur in convective upwellings driven by basal heating, passive upwelling in response to plate separation and lateral temperature gradients. Although we cannot resolve structure deeper than ∼450 km, and do not detect a bottom to the anomaly, these models suggest that it extends no deeper than the mantle transition zone. Such models thus suggest a shallow origin for the Iceland hotspot rather than a deep mantle plume, and imply that the hotspot has been located on the spreading ridge in the centre of the north Atlantic for its entire history, and is not fixed relative to other Atlantic hotspots. The results are consistent with recent, regional full‐thickness mantle tomography and whole‐mantle tomography images that show a strong, low‐wave‐speed anomaly ben...

No abstract