Progressive mixing of meteoritic veneer into the early Earth’s deep mantle

Wolfgang D. Maier (), Stephen J. Barnes, Ian H. Campbell, Marco L. Fiorentini, Petri Peltonen, Sarah-Jane Barnes and R. Hugh Smithies
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Wolfgang D. Maier: University of Oulu, Linnanmaa, 90014 Oulu, Finland
Stephen J. Barnes: CSIRO, 26 Dick Perry Avenue, Kensington 6151, Western Australia, Australia
Ian H. Campbell: Research School of Earth Sciences, Australian National University, Canberra 0200, Australian Capital Territory, Australia
Marco L. Fiorentini: Centre for Exploration Targeting, University of Western Australia, 35 Stirling Highway, Crawley 6009, Australia
Petri Peltonen: Geological Survey of Finland, Betonimiehenkuja 4, Espoo 02151, Finland
Sarah-Jane Barnes: Sciences Appliques, Université du Québec à Chicoutimi, Chicoutimi G7H 2B1, Québec, Canada
R. Hugh Smithies: Geological Survey of Western Australia, 100 Plain Street, East Perth 6004, Western Australia, Australia

Nature, 2009, vol. 460, issue 7255, 620-623

Abstract: Mixing the platinum veneer Maier et al. have sampled a class of volcanic rocks called komatiites, which are indirect samples of the deepest portions of the Earth's mantle mainly from the Archaean era. It is generally thought that the mantle lost essentially all of its platinum-group elements to the core shortly after the Earth's accretion, and these elements were subsequently replenished during an episode of influx of meteorites, particularly the Late Heavy Bombardment about 4 billion years ago. The new komatiite data, gathered from rocks 3.5 to 2.7 billion years old, show that the 'late veneer' produced by the bombardment was gradually mixed into the mantle over the subsequent billion years, and the mantle attained its present relatively homogenous platinum-group elements content only by 2.7 billion years ago. This finding overturns common assumptions about rapid incorporation of the late veneer, and constrains models of the convection, stirring and mixing of the terrestrial mantle.

Date: 2009
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DOI: 10.1038/nature08205

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