Chemical Diversity in Mid-Ocean Ridge Basalts - A geochemical excursion to the ultraslow - spreading Gakkel Ridge, Arctic Ocean

At divergent tectonic plate boundaries magma, produced in the Earth’s upper mantle, rises towards the crust, where it crystallises to a solid rock – also called a ‘basalt’. These rocks carry information about the geological history and composition of their source, allowing to gain knowledge of the Earth’s upper mantle through their analysis. In this thesis, basalts from the Arctic Ocean floor, which exposes a variety of these former magmas, were investigated. The results strengthen the current understandings of the geochemical diversity of ocean floor lavas focusing on the magmatic journey from the mantle to the crust.