The coupled 182W‐142Nd record of early terrestrial mantle differentiation

Abstract

AbstractNew Sm‐Nd, Lu‐Hf, Hf‐W, and Re‐Os isotope data, in combination with highly siderophile element (HSE, including Re, Os, Ir, Ru, Pt, and Pd) and W abundances, are reported for the 3.55 Ga Schapenburg komatiites, South Africa. The Schapenburg komatiites define a Re‐Os isochron with an age of 3550 ± 87 Ma and initial γ187Os = +3.7 ± 0.2 (2SD). The absolute HSE abundances in the mantle source of the Schapenburg komatiite system are estimated to be only 29 ± 5% of those in the present‐day bulk silicate Earth (BSE). The komatiites were derived from mantle enriched in the decay products of the long‐lived 147Sm and 176Lu nuclides (initial ɛ143Nd = +2.4 ± 0.1, ɛ176Hf = +5.7 ± 0.3, 2SD). By contrast, the komatiites are depleted, relative to the modern mantle, in 142Nd and 182W (μ182W = −8.4 ± 4.5, μ142Nd = −4.9 ± 2.8, 2SD). These results constitute the first observation in terrestrial rocks of coupled depletions in 142Nd and 182W. Such isotopic depletions require derivation of the komatiites from a mantle domain that formed within the first ∼30 Ma of Solar System history and was initially geochemically enriched in highly incompatible trace elements as a result of crystal‐liquid fractionation in an early magma ocean. This mantle domain further must have experienced subsequent melt depletion, after 182Hf had gone extinct, to account for the observed initial excesses in 143Nd and 176Hf. The survival of early‐formed 182W and 142Nd anomalies in the mantle until at least 3.55 Ga indicates that the products of early planetary differentiation survived both later planetary accretion and convective mantle mixing during the Hadean. This work moreover renders unlikely that variable late accretion, by itself, can account for all of the observed W isotope variations in Archean rocks.