Northern Scandinavian mountains supported by a low-grade eclogitic crustal keel

Abstract

Plate tectonics predicts that mountain ranges form by tectono-magmatic processes at plate boundaries, but high topography is often observed along passive margins far from any plate boundary. The high topography of the Scandes range at the Atlantic coast of Fennoscandia is traditionally assumed isostatically supported by variation in crustal density and thickness. Here we demonstrate, by our Silverroad seismic profile, that the constantly ~44 km thick crust instead is homogenous above the Moho, and Pn-velocity abruptly change from 7.6 km s−1 below the Scandes to >8.2 km s−1 below the Proterozoic shield. By modelling gravity anomalies and topography, based on the seismic model, we demonstrate that this change corresponds to an increase in metamorphic eclogitic grade from 35% below the high-topography Scandes to 70% below the low-topography shield. The sharp contrast between the low-grade, reduced-density and the high-grade, high-density eclogitic bodies below the uniform seismological Moho explains the enigmatic topography of the mountain range without a crustal root.