Eoarchean and Hadean melts reveal arc-like trace element and isotopic signatures

Wriju Chowdhury; Dustin Trail; Martha Miller; Paul Savage

doi:10.1038/s41467-023-36538-5

Eoarchean and Hadean melts reveal arc-like trace element and isotopic signatures

Wriju Chowdhury^*, Dustin Trail, Martha Miller, Paul Savage

^*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

9 Citations (Scopus)

8 Downloads (Pure)

Abstract

Constraining the lithological diversity and tectonics of the earliest Earth is critical to understanding our planet’s evolution. Here we use detrital Jack Hills zircon (3.7 − 4.2 Ga) analyses coupled with new experimental partitioning data to model the silica content, Si+O isotopic composition, and trace element contents of their parent melts. Comparing our derived Jack Hills zircons’ parent melt Si+O isotopic compositions (−1.92 ≤ δ³⁰Si_NBS28 ≤ 0.53 ‰; 5.23 ≤ δ¹⁸O_VSMOW ≤ 9.00 ‰) to younger crustal lithologies, we conclude that the chemistry of the parent melts was influenced by the assimilation of terrigenous sediments, serpentinites, cherts, and silicified basalts, followed by igneous differentiation, leading to the formation of intermediate to felsic melts in the early Earth. Trace element measurements also show that the formational regime had an arc-like chemistry, implying the presence of mobile-lid tectonics in the Hadean. Finally, we propose that these continental-crust forming processes operated uniformly from 4.2 to at least 3.7 Ga.

Original language	English
Article number	1140
Number of pages	10
Journal	Nature Communications
Volume	14
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-023-36538-5
Publication status	Published - 28 Feb 2023

Access to Document

10.1038/s41467-023-36538-5Licence: CC BY

Chowdhury_2023_NC_Eoarchean-Hadean_CC
Copyright © The Author(s) 2023. This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.
Final published version, 1.14 MBLicence: CC BY

Cite this

@article{45619f4583524a49986bd0e5396bf337,

title = "Eoarchean and Hadean melts reveal arc-like trace element and isotopic signatures",

abstract = "Constraining the lithological diversity and tectonics of the earliest Earth is critical to understanding our planet{\textquoteright}s evolution. Here we use detrital Jack Hills zircon (3.7 − 4.2 Ga) analyses coupled with new experimental partitioning data to model the silica content, Si+O isotopic composition, and trace element contents of their parent melts. Comparing our derived Jack Hills zircons{\textquoteright} parent melt Si+O isotopic compositions (−1.92 ≤ δ30SiNBS28 ≤ 0.53 ‰; 5.23 ≤ δ18OVSMOW ≤ 9.00 ‰) to younger crustal lithologies, we conclude that the chemistry of the parent melts was influenced by the assimilation of terrigenous sediments, serpentinites, cherts, and silicified basalts, followed by igneous differentiation, leading to the formation of intermediate to felsic melts in the early Earth. Trace element measurements also show that the formational regime had an arc-like chemistry, implying the presence of mobile-lid tectonics in the Hadean. Finally, we propose that these continental-crust forming processes operated uniformly from 4.2 to at least 3.7 Ga.",

author = "Wriju Chowdhury and Dustin Trail and Martha Miller and Paul Savage",

note = "Funding: This work was supported by NSF EAR-1650033 (DT), NSF EAR-1751903 (DT) and NASA PC3 grant 80NSSC19M0069 (DT).",

year = "2023",

month = feb,

day = "28",

doi = "10.1038/s41467-023-36538-5",

language = "English",

volume = "14",

journal = "Nature Communications",

issn = "2041-1723",

publisher = "Nature publishing group",

}

TY - JOUR

T1 - Eoarchean and Hadean melts reveal arc-like trace element and isotopic signatures

AU - Chowdhury, Wriju

AU - Trail, Dustin

AU - Miller, Martha

AU - Savage, Paul

N1 - Funding: This work was supported by NSF EAR-1650033 (DT), NSF EAR-1751903 (DT) and NASA PC3 grant 80NSSC19M0069 (DT).

PY - 2023/2/28

Y1 - 2023/2/28

N2 - Constraining the lithological diversity and tectonics of the earliest Earth is critical to understanding our planet’s evolution. Here we use detrital Jack Hills zircon (3.7 − 4.2 Ga) analyses coupled with new experimental partitioning data to model the silica content, Si+O isotopic composition, and trace element contents of their parent melts. Comparing our derived Jack Hills zircons’ parent melt Si+O isotopic compositions (−1.92 ≤ δ30SiNBS28 ≤ 0.53 ‰; 5.23 ≤ δ18OVSMOW ≤ 9.00 ‰) to younger crustal lithologies, we conclude that the chemistry of the parent melts was influenced by the assimilation of terrigenous sediments, serpentinites, cherts, and silicified basalts, followed by igneous differentiation, leading to the formation of intermediate to felsic melts in the early Earth. Trace element measurements also show that the formational regime had an arc-like chemistry, implying the presence of mobile-lid tectonics in the Hadean. Finally, we propose that these continental-crust forming processes operated uniformly from 4.2 to at least 3.7 Ga.

AB - Constraining the lithological diversity and tectonics of the earliest Earth is critical to understanding our planet’s evolution. Here we use detrital Jack Hills zircon (3.7 − 4.2 Ga) analyses coupled with new experimental partitioning data to model the silica content, Si+O isotopic composition, and trace element contents of their parent melts. Comparing our derived Jack Hills zircons’ parent melt Si+O isotopic compositions (−1.92 ≤ δ30SiNBS28 ≤ 0.53 ‰; 5.23 ≤ δ18OVSMOW ≤ 9.00 ‰) to younger crustal lithologies, we conclude that the chemistry of the parent melts was influenced by the assimilation of terrigenous sediments, serpentinites, cherts, and silicified basalts, followed by igneous differentiation, leading to the formation of intermediate to felsic melts in the early Earth. Trace element measurements also show that the formational regime had an arc-like chemistry, implying the presence of mobile-lid tectonics in the Hadean. Finally, we propose that these continental-crust forming processes operated uniformly from 4.2 to at least 3.7 Ga.

U2 - 10.1038/s41467-023-36538-5

DO - 10.1038/s41467-023-36538-5

M3 - Article

SN - 2041-1723

VL - 14

JO - Nature Communications

JF - Nature Communications

M1 - 1140

ER -

Eoarchean and Hadean melts reveal arc-like trace element and isotopic signatures

Abstract

Access to Document

Fingerprint

Cite this