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Geochemistry

Tracing the Earth's evolution

Nature volume 407, pages 848–849 (2000)Cite this article

The noble metals provide unique clues to the early origins of our planet. But how they are distributed within the Earth — and what it all means — is the subject of intense debate. According to the most widely accepted model of the Earth's formation, the mantle received its supply of noble metals only after the Earth had already acquired about 99% of its present mass, during a final phase of bombardment by meteorites. But many rocks in the mantle have noble-metal abundances that are difficult to reconcile with such an extraterrestrial origin. On page 891 of this issue, Alard et al.1 take a fresh look at this problem. Their results confirm that many rocks in the mantle have different noble-metal abundance signatures to meteorites. But there is a twist. They also provide conclusive evidence that these abundances cannot be used to argue against an extraterrestrial source for the noble metals in the mantle.

Piecing together the evolution of the Earth is difficult, because recent geological processes have erased most traces of our planet's early history. It is clear, however, that the primitive material that accreted to form the Earth was quickly differentiated into a silicate magma and dense metal phases. At an early stage, the metal sank to form the largely iron core that constitutes one third of the Earth's mass.

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Figure 1: Noble-metal patterns that reflect melting processes rather than the Earth's early history.

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  1. Institute of Isotope Geology and Mineral Resources, ETH Zürich, CH-8092 , Zürich, Switzerland

    Mark Rehkämper

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  1. Mark Rehkämper
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Correspondence to Mark Rehkämper.

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Rehkämper, M. Tracing the Earth's evolution. Nature 407, 848–849 (2000). https://doi.org/10.1038/35038190

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