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Tungsten isotope evidence that mantle plumes contain no contribution from the Earth's core

Nature volume 427, pages 234–237 (2004)Cite this article

Abstract

Osmium isotope ratios provide important constraints on the sources of ocean-island basalts, but two very different models have been put forward to explain such data. One model interprets 187Os-enrichments in terms of a component of recycled oceanic crust within the source material1,2. The other model infers that interaction of the mantle with the Earth's outer core produces the isotope anomalies and, as a result of coupled 186Os–187Os anomalies, put time constraints on inner-core formation3,4,5. Like osmium, tungsten is a siderophile (‘iron-loving’) element that preferentially partitioned into the Earth's core during core formation but is also ‘incompatible’ during mantle melting (it preferentially enters the melt phase), which makes it further depleted in the mantle. Tungsten should therefore be a sensitive tracer of core contributions in the source of mantle melts. Here we present high-precision tungsten isotope data from the same set of Hawaiian rocks used to establish the previously interpreted 186Os–187Os anomalies and on selected South African rocks, which have also been proposed to contain a core contribution6. None of the samples that we have analysed have a negative tungsten isotope value, as predicted from the core-contribution model. This rules out a simple core–mantle mixing scenario and suggests that the radiogenic osmium in ocean-island basalts can better be explained by the source of such basalts containing a component of recycled crust.

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Figure 1: εW values for Group I and Group II kimberlites and Hawaiian picrites.
Figure 2: εW–186Os/188Os mixing models for two core-contribution scenarios and for Mn-crust contamination of the Hawaiian plume source.

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Acknowledgements

We thank A. LeRoex, J. Gurney, K. Westerlund, N. Coe and M. Coetzee at the University of Cape Town who provided and helped us select kimberlite samples. S. Russel at the Natural History Museum, London, donated the meteorite samples. Discussions on the manuscript by E. Hauri, G. Helffrich & B. Wood are appreciated. This work is supported by a EU Marie Curie post-doctoral fellowship.

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  1. Department of Earth Sciences, University of Bristol, Will's Memorial Building, Queen's Road, BS8 1RJ, Bristol, UK

    Anders Scherstén, Tim Elliott & Chris Hawkesworth

  2. Research School of Earth Sciences, The Australian National University, Canberra, Australian Capital Territory, 0200, Australia

    Marc Norman

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Correspondence to Anders Scherstén.

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Scherstén, A., Elliott, T., Hawkesworth, C. et al. Tungsten isotope evidence that mantle plumes contain no contribution from the Earth's core. Nature 427, 234–237 (2004). https://doi.org/10.1038/nature02221

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