Highest terrestial ³He/⁴He credibly from the core
Creators
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1.
Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution
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2.
California Institute of Technology
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3.
Dartmouth College
Abstract
The observation that many lavas associated with mantle plumes have higher 3He/4He ratios than the upper convecting mantle underpins geophysical, geodynamic and geochemical models of Earth’s deep interior. High 3He/4He ratios are thought to derive from the solar nebula or from solar-wind-irradiated material that became incorporated into Earth during early planetary accretion. Traditionally, this high-3He/4He component has been considered intrinsic to the mantle, having avoided outgassing caused by giant impacts and billions of years of mantle convection. Here we report the highest magmatic 3He/4He ratio(67.2 ± 1.8 times the atmospheric ratio) yet measured in terrestrial igneous rocks, in olivines from Baffin Island lavas. We argue that the extremely high-3He/4He helium in these lavas might derive from Earth’s core. The viability of the core hypothesis relaxes the long-standing constraint—based on noble gases in lavas associated with mantle plumes globally—that volatile elements from the solar nebula have survived in the mantle since the early stages of accretion.
Copyright and License
© The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Limited 2023.
Acknowledgement
M. Mahy of Parks Canada Nunavut Field Unit assisted with fieldwork planning. V. Hooten performed mineral separation. N. Chatterjee carried out electron microprobe analyses. This research was funded by the National Science Foundation (award number 1911699). The Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Endowed Fund for Innovative Research and a National Geographic Society grant (CP4-144R-18) supported fieldwork activities.
Contributions
F.H.: conceptualization, methodology, investigation, writing—original draft, visualization, supervision, and funding acquisition. P.D.A.: conceptualization, investigation, resources, writing—review and editing, supervision, and funding acquisition. K.A.F.: conceptualization, methodology, investigation, resources, writing—review and editing, supervision, and funding acquisition. J.C.: methodology and investigation. M.D.K.: resources, methodology, writing—review and editing, and supervision. J.B.: methodology, investigation, resources, writing—review and editing. J.A.B.: investigation. X.M.B.: formal analysis and investigation.
Data Availability
All data are available in the paper, the supplementary materials and on EarthChem (https://doi.org/10.26022/IEDA/112776).
Conflict of Interest
The authors declare no competing interests.
Supplemental Material
Supplementary Table 1: Complete helium isotope results for crushing and fusion experiments on Baffin Island olivine mineral separates. Supplementary Table 2: Measured whole-rock radiogenic isotopic ratios (206Pb/204Pb, 207Pb/204Pb, 206Pb/204Pb, 87Sr/86Sr and 143Nd/144Nd) for Baffin Island lavas. Supplementary Table 3: Electron probe microanalyser results for transects across olivines from Baffin Island lava sample PING18-H2.
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Additional details
Related works
- Describes
- Journal Article: https://rdcu.be/evF7F (ReadCube)
- Is supplemented by
- Dataset: 10.26022/IEDA/112776 (DOI)
- Supplemental Material: https://static-content.springer.com/esm/art%3A10.1038%2Fs41586-023-06590-8/MediaObjects/41586_2023_6590_MOESM1_ESM.xlsx (URL)
Funding
- National Science Foundation
- EAR-1911699
- Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution
- Andrew W. Mellon Foundation
- National Geographic Society
- CP4-144R-18
Dates
- Accepted
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2023-08-30
- Available
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2023-10-18Published