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Mantle 40Ar/36Ar trapped in Cretaceous deep-sea basalts

Nature volume 276, pages 491–492 (1978)Cite this article

Abstract

THE abundance and isotopic composition of rare gas in the mantle provides an important constraint on the origin and evolution of the Earth's atmosphere. One of sources of such information is basalts which erupted from ocean ridges. Ozima1 stated that a high 40Ar/36Ar ratio in the mantle suggests sudden degassing at an early stage of the Earth's evolution. Several authors2,3 have reported excess 40Ar and high 40Ar/36Ar ratios in rapidly quenched rims of young deep-sea basalts. However, the Ar composition in old ridge basalts was not known. We report here a measurement of the isotopic composition of Ar in old deep-sea basalts. The Glomar Challenger drilled a Cretaceous ocean floor near the southern end of the Bermuda Rise in Deep Sea Drilling Project4. The drilled site (Site 417) is on the magnetic anomaly MO which has been estimated to be 108 Myr old.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Physics, Faculty of Science, Osaka University, Toyonaka, Osaka, 560, Japan

    NOBUO TAKAOKA & KEISUKE NAGAO

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  1. NOBUO TAKAOKA
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  2. KEISUKE NAGAO
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TAKAOKA, N., NAGAO, K. Mantle 40Ar/36Ar trapped in Cretaceous deep-sea basalts. Nature 276, 491–492 (1978). https://doi.org/10.1038/276491a0

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