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146Sm–142Nd evidence from Isua metamorphosed sediments for early differentiation of the Earth's mantle

Nature volume 423, pages 428–432 (2003)Cite this article

A Corrigendum to this article was published on 21 August 2003

Abstract

Application of the 147Sm–143Nd chronometer (half-life of 106?Gyr) suggests that large-scale differentiation of the Earth's mantle may have occurred during the first few hundred million years of its history1. However, the signature of mantle depletion found in early Archaean rocks is often obscured by uncertainties resulting from open-system behaviour of the rocks during later high-grade metamorphic events2. Hence, although strong hints exist regarding the presence of differentiated silicate reservoirs before 4.0?Gyr ago, both the nature and age of early mantle differentiation processes remain largely speculative3,4,5. Here we apply short-lived 146Sm–142Nd chronometry (half-life of 103?Myr) to early Archaean rocks using ultraprecise measurement of Nd isotope ratios. The analysed samples are well-preserved metamorphosed sedimentary rocks from the 3.7–3.8-Gyr Isua greenstone belt of West Greenland. Our coupled isotopic calculations, combined with an initial ɛ143Nd value from ref. 6, constrain the mean age of mantle differentiation to 4,460 ± 115?Myr. This early Sm/Nd fractionation probably reflects differentiation of the Earth's mantle during the final stage of terrestrial accretion.

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Figure 1: ɛ142Nd values of IGB metasediments compared with those of the Nd standard AMES (N = 33) and several replicates of a modern mid-ocean ridge basalt.
Figure 2: Snapshot of 142,143Nd isotopic evolution of differentiated mantle at 3,744?Myr ago.
Figure 3: Isotopic evolution curves of depleted mantle following instantaneous differentiation of the mantle–crust system.

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Acknowledgements

We thank C. Allègre, C. Jaupart and C. Langmuir for discussions, K. Burton for input at the earlier stage of this work, M. Delmotte for maintaining the TRITON in good condition, and M. Pierre for help with analytical chemistry. S.M. thanks P. Appel and the Isua Multidisciplinary Research Project for logistic and financial support of field work. This work was supported by the CNRS research programme ‘Intérieur de la Terre’.

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  1. Laboratoire de Géochimie et Cosmochimie (UMR 7579 CNRS), Institut de Physique du Globe de Paris, Université Denis Diderot 4, place Jussieu, 75252 Cedex 05, Paris, France

    Guillaume Caro, Bernard Bourdon & Jean-Louis Birck

  2. Department of Earth Sciences, Oxford University, Parks Road, OX1 3PR, Oxford, UK

    Stephen Moorbath

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  1. Guillaume Caro
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Correspondence to Guillaume Caro.

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Caro, G., Bourdon, B., Birck, JL. et al. 146Sm–142Nd evidence from Isua metamorphosed sediments for early differentiation of the Earth's mantle. Nature 423, 428–432 (2003). https://doi.org/10.1038/nature01668

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