Upside-down differentiation and generation of a ‘primordial’ lower mantle

Cin-Ty A. Lee (), Peter Luffi, Tobias Höink, Jie Li, Rajdeep Dasgupta and John Hernlund
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Cin-Ty A. Lee: MS-126, Rice University, 6100 Main Street, Houston, Texas 77005, USA
Peter Luffi: MS-126, Rice University, 6100 Main Street, Houston, Texas 77005, USA
Tobias Höink: MS-126, Rice University, 6100 Main Street, Houston, Texas 77005, USA
Jie Li: University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan 48109-1005, USA
Rajdeep Dasgupta: MS-126, Rice University, 6100 Main Street, Houston, Texas 77005, USA
John Hernlund: University of California, Berkeley, California 94720, USA

Nature, 2010, vol. 463, issue 7283, 930-933

Abstract: The 'primordial' lower mantle Cin-Ty Lee and colleagues put forward the hypothesis that a necessary by-product of whole-mantle convection during the Earth's first billion years was deep and hot melting, resulting in the generation of dense liquids that crystallized and sank into the lower mantle. As melt extraction concentrates incompatible elements, such as the heat-producing elements uranium, thorium and potassium, as well as the noble gases, into the melt, they propose that such sunken lithologies would have 'primordial' chemical signatures, despite having a non-primordial origin. This might explain the 'primordial' signature now observed in ocean island basalts.

Date: 2010
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DOI: 10.1038/nature08824

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