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Evidence against a chondritic Earth

Nature volume 483, pages 553–558 (2012)Cite this article

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Abstract

The 142Nd/144Nd ratio of the Earth is greater than the solar ratio as inferred from chondritic meteorites, which challenges a fundamental assumption of modern geochemistry—that the composition of the silicate Earth is ‘chondritic’, meaning that it has refractory element ratios identical to those found in chondrites. The popular explanation for this and other paradoxes of mantle geochemistry, a hidden layer deep in the mantle enriched in incompatible elements, is inconsistent with the heat flux carried by mantle plumes. Either the matter from which the Earth formed was not chondritic, or the Earth has lost matter by collisional erosion in the later stages of planet formation.

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Figure 1: Laboratory model of a mantle plume.
Figure 2: The pattern of volatile element depletion in the BSE for lithophile elements compared to CV carbonaceous chondrites and EH enstatite chondrites.
Figure 3: Depletion of some RLEs in the BSE by preferential collisional erosion of early-formed basaltic crust during accretion of planetesimals and planetary embryos.

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Acknowledgements

We thank Y. Amelin and R. Taylor for their comments on an early draft of the paper, C. Allen for preparing Fig. 1 and R. Carlson and B. Bourdon for their detailed and constructive reviews.

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  1. Research School of Earth Science, Australian National University, Canberra, 0200, Australian Capital Territory, Australia

    Ian H. Campbell & Hugh St C. O’Neill

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Correspondence to Ian H. Campbell.

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Campbell, I., St C. O’Neill, H. Evidence against a chondritic Earth. Nature 483, 553–558 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1038/nature10901

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