The continental crustal age distribution: Methods of determining mantle separation ages from Sm‐Nd isotopic data and application to the southwestern United States

Abstract

Samarium‐neodymium isotope systematics provide a means of determining the age of the continental crust, where ”age“ refers to the amount of time the crustal rock material has been isolated from the convecting mantle. This age is referred to as the Sm‐Nd model age or the mantle separation age. Systematic analysis of rocks from the continents can be used to determine the age distribution by mass in the continents; this is a unique record of the thermal and chemical evolution of Earth over almost 4 b.y. The establishment of mantle separation ages for crustal rock reservoirs requires precise geochronological information typically provided by U‐Pb isotopic measurements of zircon, plus models for (1) Nd isotopic evolution in the mantle source of continental crust, (2) Nd isotopic evolution of crustal reservoirs subsequent to formation, (3) petrogenesis of certain types of granitic rocks in the crust, (4) the mechanisms of formation of hybrid crust (mixtures of material newly differentiated from the mantle with material derived from older crust), and (5) the evolution of the lower parts of the continental crust during continental margin magmatism and intracontinental extension. Methods are presented for treating isotopic data on continental rock materials to obtain meaningful mantle separation ages. The greatest uncertainties come from a lack of adequate information on lower crustal processes and composition. The methods are applied to the Precambrian and Mesozoic rocks of the southwestern United States to produce a mass‐age distribution for the region, which represents 1% of the global continental mass. The results suggest episodic crustal growth, with short growth periods at circa 2.8, 1.8, and 0.1 Ga. About 90% of the crust was formed by 1.8 Ga, the remaining 10% was added in the Phanerozoic. The mean age of this section of continent is determined to be 1.84 Ga. Almost all of the Phanerozoic additions occur in areas where there was no preexisting continental basement; Mesozoic magmatic additions account for only about 2% of the crustal mass in the area underlain by Precambrian basement. In the region of post‐Precambrian continental growth, the regions farthest from the Precambrian continental edge are composed of mostly (>85%) of material newly differentiated from the mantle. Adjacent to the Precambrian continental edge the new crust is typically composed about 50% of material newly differentiated from the mantle and 50% of old crustal material. There is no correlation between crustal thickness and the crust formation age in the area studied; the age‐area and age‐mass curves are nearly identical.