Production of mildly alkaline basalts at complex ocean ridge settings: perspectives from basalts emitted during the 2010 eruption at the Eyjafjallajökull volcano, Iceland

The early phase of the 2010 eruption at the Eyjafjallajökull volcano (Iceland) produced poorly evolved mildly alkaline basalts that have a signature more enriched with respect to the typically depleted basalts emitted at ocean ridges. The whole rock geochemistry of these basaltic magmas offers a great opportunity to investigate the mantle source characteristics and reasons leading to this enriched fingerprint in proximity of the ocean ridge system. Some basaltic products of Katla volcano, ~25. km east of Eyjafjallajökull, have been chosen from the literature, as they display a similar mildly alkaline signature and can be therefore useful to explore the same target. Major and trace element variations of the whole rock suggest a very limited evolutionary degree for the 2010 Eyjafjallajökull products and the selected Katla magmas, highlighting the minor role played by differentiation processes such as fractional crystallization. Nevertheless, effects of the limited fractionation have been erased through re-equilibration of the major and trace element abundances at primary conditions. Concentrations of Th after re-equilibration have been assumed as indexes of the partial melting degree, given the high incompatibility of the element, and enrichment ratios calculated for each trace element. Especially for LILE (Rb, Ba, K, Sr), the pattern of resulting enrichment ratios well matches that obtained from fractional melting of peridotite bearing hydrous phases (amphibole/phlogopite). This put forward the idea that magmas have been generated through partial melting of enriched mantle domains where hydrous minerals have been stabilized as a consequence of metasomatic processes. Refertilization of the mantle has been attributed to intrusion of hydrous silicate melts and fractional crystallization of hydrous cumulates. These refertilizing melts, inherited from an ancient subducted oceanic crust, intruded into a depleted oceanic lithosphere that remained stored for a long time (hundreds of Ma or Ga) before being re-entrained in partial melting. This means that magmas could have acquired their main geochemical differences in response of the variable depletion/enrichment degree of the heterogeneous mantle portion tapped at rather shallow depth (≤100. km). Our finding is another tessera in the open debate on the plume-related vs. non plume-related origin of Icelandic magmatism.