Origin of isolated seamounts in the Canary Basin (East Atlantic): The role of plume material in the origin of seamounts not associated with hotspot tracks

In contrast to seamount chains, small solitary seamounts/seamount groups have rarely been sampled despite their large number and therefore their origins remain enigmatic. Here we present new Ar-40/Ar-39, trace element and Nd-Hf-Pb isotope data from the solitary Demenitskoy Seamount, the isolated Tolkien seamount group and the Krylov Seamount and Ridge in the Canary Basin, Central Atlantic Ocean. Their chemical compositions range from intraplate ocean-island-basalt (Demenitskoy) to mid-ocean-ridge-basalt (Tolkien and Krylov) types. Lavas from all three seamount groups, however, show geochemical evidence for involvement of enriched Canary/Cape Verde plume material. Seismic tomography shows that large areas around these mantle plumes consist of dispersed low-velocity material, which could represent diffusely-upwelling plume mantle. Melts from such upwelling mantle could form isolated seamounts. Diffuse upwelling of plume material is likely to be extremely widespread but has been poorly studied to date. Significance Statement A fundamental question concerns the origin of the hundreds of thousands of solitary seamounts and small isolated clusters of such seamounts on the seafloor of the world's ocean basins. Most of them do not fit into any currently accepted models (e.g. they are not associated with a linear hotspot track or plate boundary processes). Their formation could therefore represent a new kind of intraplate volcanism that in fact could be extremely widespread but has been thus far largely neglected. In this manuscript, we report geochemical data from three isolated seamount sites in the Canary Basin and propose a provocative model for their formation that can also be applied to isolated seamounts elsewhere. Our study is therefore also a plea for the long overdue systematic investigation of small seamount volcanism in the world's ocean basins. I hereby confirm that all the data and interpretations are new and have not been published elsewhere. All co-authors have been actively involved in this work, have approved the manuscript and agreed to this submission.