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Formation of Hadean granites by melting of igneous crust

Nature Geoscience volume 10, pages 457–461 (2017)Cite this article

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Abstract

The oldest known samples of Earth, with ages of up to 4.4 Gyr, are detrital zircon grains in meta-sedimentary rocks of the Jack Hills in Australia. These zircons offer insights into the magmas from which they crystallized, and, by implication, igneous activity and tectonics in the first 500 million years of Earth’s history, the Hadean eon. However, the compositions of these magmas and the relative contributions of igneous and sedimentary components to their sources have not yet been resolved. Here we compare the trace element concentrations of the Jack Hills zircons to those of zircons from the locality where igneous (I-) and sedimentary (S-) type granites were first distinguished. We show that the Hadean zircons crystallized predominantly from I-type magmas formed by melting of a reduced, garnet-bearing igneous crust. Further, we propose that both the phosphorus content of zircon and the ratio of phosphorus to rare earth elements can be used to distinguish between detrital zircon grains from I- and S-type sources. These elemental discriminants provide a new geochemical tool to assess the relative contributions of primeval magmatism and melting of recycled sediments to the continents over geological time.

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Figure 1: Trace element cumulative frequency diagrams for zircons from I- and S-type granites of the Lachlan Fold Belt, and from the Jack Hills.
Figure 2: Relationship between the concentrations of REE + Y and P in zircons from the LFB (solid symbols, S-type; open symbols, I-type) and JH (red crosses).
Figure 3: Difference between zircon REE concentrations for I-type granites of the LFB and the JH as a function of ionic radius.

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Acknowledgements

We thank R. Ickert and I. Williams for providing the zircons, N. Badullovich for preparing some of the samples, and C. Allen for assistance with LA-ICP-MS. A.J.B. thanks the Australian Research Council for the award of a Future Fellowship.

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  1. Research School of Earth Sciences, Australian National University, Canberra, Australian Capital Territory 2601, Australia

    A. D. Burnham & A. J. Berry

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A.J.B. conceived the research project, A.D.B. performed the analyses and processed the data, and both authors contributed to the data interpretation and preparation of the manuscript.

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Correspondence to A. D. Burnham.

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Burnham, A., Berry, A. Formation of Hadean granites by melting of igneous crust. Nature Geosci 10, 457–461 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1038/ngeo2942

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