Tungsten isotope evidence from ∼3.8-Gyr metamorphosed sediments for early meteorite bombardment of the Earth

Ronny Schoenberg (), Balz S. Kamber, Kenneth D. Collerson and Stephen Moorbath
Additional contact information
Ronny Schoenberg: Advanced Centre for Queensland University Research Excellence (ACQUIRE), The University of Queensland
Balz S. Kamber: Advanced Centre for Queensland University Research Excellence (ACQUIRE), The University of Queensland
Kenneth D. Collerson: Advanced Centre for Queensland University Research Excellence (ACQUIRE), The University of Queensland
Stephen Moorbath: University of Oxford

Nature, 2002, vol. 418, issue 6896, 403-405

Abstract: Abstract The ‘Late Heavy Bombardment’ was a phase in the impact history of the Moon that occurred 3.8–4.0 Gyr ago, when the lunar basins with known dates were formed1,2. But no record of this event has yet been reported from the few surviving rocks of this age on the Earth. Here we report tungsten isotope anomalies, based on the 182Hf–182W system (half-life of 9 Myr), in metamorphosed sedimentary rocks from the 3.7–3.8-Gyr-old Isua greenstone belt of West Greenland and closely related rocks from northern Labrador, Canada. As it is difficult to conceive of a mechanism by which tungsten isotope heterogeneities could have been preserved in the Earth's dynamic crust–mantle environment from a time when short-lived 182Hf was still present, we conclude that the metamorphosed sediments contain a component derived from meteorites.

Date: 2002
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/nature00923 Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:nature:v:418:y:2002:i:6896:d:10.1038_nature00923

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/

DOI: 10.1038/nature00923

Access Statistics for this article

Nature is currently edited by Magdalena Skipper

More articles in Nature from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().