Helium isotopic evidence for episodic mantle melting and crustal growth

S. W. Parman ()
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S. W. Parman: University of Durham, South Road, Durham DH1 3LE, UK

Nature, 2007, vol. 446, issue 7138, 900-903

Abstract: When on Earth? The timing of continental crust formation is a topic of heated debate. What is generally agreed is that the continental crust was extracted from the mantle by partial melting. That process should have left a chemical fingerprint in the isotopic composition of the mantle. Stephen Parman has now identified this fingerprint, in the shape of a spectrum of helium ratios in ocean island basalts that appears to preserve the mantle's depletion history, closely correlating with the ages of proposed continental growth pulses. The correspondence between the ages of mantle depletion events and pulses of crustal production implies that the formation of the continental crust was indeed episodic and punctuated by large, potentially global melting events.

Date: 2007
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DOI: 10.1038/nature05691

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