Neogene magmatism northeast of the Aegir and Kolbeinsey ridges, NE Atlantic: Spreading ridge–mantle plume interaction?

According to mantle plume theory the Earth's interior cools partly by localized large vertical mass transport, causing extensive decompression melting. The Iceland melt anomaly is regarded as a typical example of a mantle plume. However, there are centers of Miocene to recent magmatism in the Norwegian‐Greenland Sea not easily explained by the plume theory. Here we present new data to document diffuse late Miocene magmatic underplating of older oceanic crust located mostly north of the Aegir Ridge, an extinct seafloor spreading axis in the Norway Basin. There is also a region with similar magmatism northeast of the presently spreading Kolbeinsey Ridge north of Iceland. Intraplate magmatism in these locations is not easily explained by local plume models, edge‐driven convection, or by asthenosphere flow–lithosphere thickness interaction. On the basis of correlation between the magmatism and the active or extinct spreading ridges, we propose the mid‐ocean ridge basalt–capture model, in which this magmatism can be understood through plume–spreading ridge interaction: The asthenosphere flow out from Iceland captures deeper, low‐degree partially molten asthenospheric regions from underneath the spreading ridges and carry these across the terminating fracture zones, to subsequently underplate oceanic crust or to intrude and build seamounts. This model is similar to lithospheric cracking models for intraplate magmatism in requiring that low‐degree partial melt can be retained in the asthenosphere over time but differ in that the magma is extracted by internal magma movement processes and not by external tectonic forces.