Skip to main content

Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript.

Deep mantle

Enriched carbon source detected

Nature Geoscience volume 10, pages 625–627 (2017)Cite this article

Subjects

Estimates of carbon in the deep mantle vary by more than an order of magnitude. Coupled volcanic CO2 emission data and magma supply rates reveal a carbon-rich mantle plume source region beneath Hawai'i with 40% more carbon than previous estimates.

Over geologic timescales, the deep carbon cycle transports carbon from the mantle to Earth's surface via volcanism and back into the interior through subduction. This process remains poorly constrained, in contrast to the relatively well-studied near-surface carbon cycle between the atmosphere, oceans and continents. Carbon concentrations in the deepest portions of the mantle — those regions that feed mantle plumes and ocean island basalts — are the most poorly constrained, due to the near impossibility of retrieving pristine samples. Hotspot volcanoes, such as Hawai'i, are fed by plumes that originate from the deep, less-degassed mantle, and they represent the best opportunity to investigate deep carbon. The continued ambiguity in the deep carbon budget limits understanding of mantle structure, primary sources of volcanism, and Earth's deep carbon cycle. Writing in Nature Geoscience, Anderson and Poland1 present a physical model that incorporates existing carbon data from Hawai'i and suggests that the deep carbon content of Earth may be significantly higher than previously thought.

This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution

Access options

Buy article

Get time limited or full article access on ReadCube.

$32.00

Buy

All prices are NET prices.

Figure 1: Methods for estimating Earth's deep carbon content.

References

  1. Anderson, K. R. & Poland, M. P. Nat. Geosci. 10, 704–708 (2017).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  2. Dasgupta, R. & Hirschmann, M. M. Earth Planet. Sci. Lett. 298, 1–13 (2010).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  3. Hilton, D. R., McMurtry, G. M. & Kreulen, R. Geophys. Res. Lett. 24, 3065–3068 (1997).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  4. Marty, B. & Tolstikhin, I. N. Chem. Geol. 145, 233–248 (1998).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  5. Shaw, A. M., Hilton, D. R., Fischer, T. P., Walker, J. A. & Alvarado, G. E. Earth Planet. Sci. Lett. 214, 499–513 (2003).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  6. Saal, A. E., Hauri, E. H., Langmuir, C. H. & Perfit, M. R. Nature 419, 451–455 (2002).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  7. Gaillard, F., Malki, M., Iacono-Marziano, G., Pichavant, M. & Scaillet, B. Science 322, 1363–1365 (2008).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  8. Macpherson, C. & Mattey, D. Earth Planet. Sci. Lett. 121, 263–276 (1994).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  9. Marty, B. Earth Planet. Sci. Lett. 313, 56–66 (2012).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  10. Barry, P. H., Hilton, D. R., Füri, E., Halldórsson, S. A. & Grönvold, K. Geochim. Cosmochim. Acta 134, 74–99 (2014).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  11. Gerlach, T. Eos Trans. Am. Geophys. Union 92, 201–202 (2011).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  12. Sobolev, S. V. et al. Nature 477, 312–316 (2011).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  13. Schaller, M. F., Wright, J. D. & Kent, D. V. Science 331, 1404–1409 (2011).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  14. Percival, L. M. E. et al. Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA 114, 7929–7934 (2017).

    Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Earth Sciences, University of Oxford, South Parks Road, Oxford, OX1 3AN, UK

    Peter H. Barry

Authors
  1. Peter H. Barry
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Peter H. Barry.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and Permissions

About this article

Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Barry, P. Enriched carbon source detected. Nature Geosci 10, 625–627 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1038/ngeo3001

Download citation

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/ngeo3001

Search

Advanced search

Quick links

Nature Briefing

Sign up for the Nature Briefing newsletter — what matters in science, free to your inbox daily.

Get the most important science stories of the day, free in your inbox. Sign up for Nature Briefing