Isotopic and trace element analyses of recent alkaline volcanic rocks from Jan Mayen were used to characterize their mantle source. The samples, ranging in composition from ankaramites to trachytes, are isotopically homogeneous with 11 of 12 samples within the following ranges: 87Sr/86Sr0.7035--0.7036, 143Nd/144Nd:0.51285--0.51290, 206Pb/204Pb:18.54--18.76, 207Pb/204Pb15.45--15.49, and 208Pb/204Pb:38.19--38.51. Geophysical data indicate that the Jan Mayen Ridge represents a microcontinent rifted off the east Greenland continental margin at 36 Ma. The isotopic homogeneity and poor correlation between the degree of magmatic differentiation and Sr-Nd isotopic composition show that the recent Jan Mayen magmas escaped significant contamination by Precambrian or Lower Paleozoic continental crust. A pervasive Tertiary to recent magmatic infrastructure may explain the lack of contamination with old crustal material. The Jan Mayen alkali basalts have similar trace element and isotopic composition to other oceanic plume basalts and are dominated by low-degree melts from an enriched mantle component prevalent in the NE Atlantic. The Icelandic alkali basalts are derived from similar sources but are more diluted with picritic or tholeiitic melt fractions formed by progressive melting at shallower levels. Minimum dilution of the incipient low-degree melts occurs when the melting column is truncated by a thick lithosphere. The mantle source sampled by the Jan Mayen and other alkaline volcanic systems in the NE Atlantic is strongly enriched in high field strength elements like Nb, has a relatively high μ value, and has 207206Pb ratios below and 208Pb/206Pb ratios above the Northern Hemisphere Reference Line. Such a Pb isotopic composition fits well with an old mantle domain with a time-integrated low μ value, enriched by a Paleozoic high μ (HIMU) component. The young HIMU-component in the NE Atlantic upper mantle could represent recycled oceanic crust entrained in the ancestral Iceland plume and distributed laterally by the ancestral plume head. ¿ 1999 American Geophysical Union