The age of parana flood volcanism, rifting of gondwanaland, and the jurassic-cretaceous boundary

The Paraná-Etendeka flood volcanic event produced approximately 1.5 x 10(6) cubic kilometers of volcanic rocks, ranging from basalts to rhyolites, before the separation of South America and Africa during the Cretaceous period. New (40)Ar/(39)Ar data combined with earlier paleomagnetic results indicate that Paraná flood volcanism in southern Brazil began at 133 +/- 1 million years ago and lasted less than 1 million years. The implied mean eruption rate on the order of 1.5 cubic kilometers per year is consistent with a mantle plume origin for the event and is comparable to eruption rates determined for other well-documented continental flood volcanic events. Paraná flood volcanism occurred before the initiation of sea floor spreading in the South Atlantic and was probably precipitated by uplift and weakening of the lithosphere by the Tristan da Cunha plume. The Parana event postdates most current estimates for the age of the faunal mass extinction associated with the Jurassic-Cretaceous boundary.     

Early and Late Alkali Igneous Pulses and a High-3He Plume Origin for the Deccan Flood Basalts

Several alkalic igneous complexes of nephelinite-carbonatite affinities occur in extensional zones around a region of high heat flow and positive gravity anomaly within the continental flood basalt (CFB) province of Deccan, India. Biotites from two of the complexes yield (40)Ar/(39)Ar dates of 68.53 +/- 0.16 and 68.57 +/- 0.08 million years. Biotite from a third complex, which intrudes the flood basalts, yields an (40)Ar/(39)Ar date of 64.96 +/- 0.1 1 million years. The complexes thus represent early and late magmatism with respect to the main pulse of CFB volcanism 65 million years ago. Rocks from the older complexes show a (3)He/(4)He ratio of 14.0 times the air ratio, an initial (87)Sr/(86)Sr ratio of 0.70483, and other geochemical characteristics similar to ocean island basalts; the later alkalic pulse shows isotopic evidence of crustal contamination. The data document 3.5 million years of incubation of a primitive, high-(3)He mantle plume before the rapid eruption of the Deccan CFB.     

Synchrony and causal relations between permian-triassic boundary crises and siberian flood volcanism

The Permian-Triassic boundary records the most severe mass extinctions in Earth's history. Siberian flood volcanism, the most profuse known such subaerial event, produced 2 million to 3 million cubic kilometers of volcanic ejecta in approximately 1 million years or less. Analysis of (40)Ar/(39)Ar data from two tuffs in southern China yielded a date of 250.0 +/- 0.2 million years ago for the Permian-Triassic boundary, which is comparable to the inception of main stage Siberian flood volcanism at 250.0 +/- 0.3 million years ago. Volcanogenic sulfate aerosols and the dynamic effects of the Siberian plume likely contributed to environmental extrema that led to the mass extinctions.     

Rapid eruption of the siberian traps flood basalts at the permo-triassic boundary

The Siberian Traps represent one of the most voluminous flood basalt provinces on Earth. Laser-heating (40)Ar/(39)Ar data indicate that the bulk of these basalts was erupted over an extremely short time interval (900,000 +/- 800,000 years) beginning at about 248 million years ago at mean eruption rates of greater than 1.3 cubic kilometers per year. Such rates are consistent with a mantle plume origin. Magmatism was not associated with significant lithospheric rifting; thus, mantle decompression resulting from rifting was probably not the primary cause of widespread melting. Inception of Siberian Traps volcanism coincided (within uncertainty) with a profound faunal mass extinction at the Permo-Triassic boundary 249 +/- 4 million years ago; these data thus leave open the question of a genetic relation between the two events.     

40Ar/39Ar Age of Cretaceous-Tertiary Boundary Tektites from Haiti

(40)Ar/(39)Ar dating of tektites discovered recently in Cretaceous-Tertiary (K-T) boundary marine sedimentary rocks on Haiti indicates that the K-T boundary and impact event are coeval at 64.5 +/- 0.1 million years ago. Sanidine from a bentonite that lies directly above the K-T boundary in continental, coal-bearing, sedimentary rocks of Montana was also dated and has a (40)Ar/(39)Ar age of 64.6 +/- 0.2 million years ago, which is indistinguishable statistically from the age of the tektites.     

Timing of hot spot--related volcanism and the breakup of madagascar and India

Widespread basalts and rhyolites were erupted in Madagascar during the Late Cretaceous. These are considered to be related to the Marion hot spot and the breakup of Madagascar and Greater India. Seventeen argon-40/argon-39 age determinations reveal that volcanic rocks and dikes from the 1500-kilometer-long rifted eastern margin of Madagascar were emplaced rapidly (mean age = 87.6 +/- 0.6 million years ago) and that the entire duration of Cretaceous volcanism on the island was no more than 6 million years. The evidence suggests that the thick lava pile at Volcan de l'Androy in the south of the island marks the focal point of the Marion hot spot at approximately 88 million years ago and that this mantle plume was instrumental in causing continental breakup.     

Mantle plumes and entrainment: isotopic evidence

Many oceanic island basalts show sublinear subparallel arrays in Sr-Nd-Pb isotopic space. The depleted upper mantle is rarely a mixing end-member of these arrays, as would be expected if mantle plumes originated at a 670-kilometer boundary layer and entrained upper mantle during ascent. Instead, the arrays are fan-shaped and appear to converge on a volume in isotopic space characterized by low (87)Sr/(86)Sr and high (143)Nd/(144)Nd, (206)Pb/(204)Pb, and (3)He/(4)He ratios. This new isotopic component may be the lower mantle, entrained into plumes originating from the core-mantle boundary layer.     

Radiogenic Strontium-87 as an Index of Geologic Processes

The abundance of radiogenic Sr(87) relative to Sr(86) at the time of crystallization has been determined for 45 rocks. The total range in the ratio Sr(87)/Sr(86) is less than 2 percent. Ratios for recent lavas range from 0.702 to 0.711. Oceanic basalts are closely grouped at 0.703, whereas ratios for continental volcanic rocks spread from 0.702 to 0.711. Among the volcanic rocks, ranging from basalt to rhyolite, no correlation was found between original ratio and rock type. Older mafic and felsic rocks that include both plutonic and extrusive types also cover this same range in original Sr(87)/Sr(86) ratios; however, there is a definite trend with geologic time. Precambrian rocks give values as low as 0.700. The data indicate that Sr(87)/Sr(86) of the weathering crust has changed 1.1 percent in 3000 million years, while the ratio in the mantle has changed no more than 0.5 percent.     

Rogue mantle helium and neon

The canonical model of helium isotope geochemistry describes the lower mantle as undegassed, but this view conflicts with evidence of recycled material in the source of ocean island basalts. Because mantle helium is efficiently extracted by magmatic activity, it cannot remain in fertile mantle rocks for long periods of time. Here, I suggest that helium with high 3He/4He ratios, as well as neon rich in the solar component, diffused early in Earth's history from low-melting-point primordial material into residual refractory "reservoir" rocks, such as dunites. The difference in 3He/4He ratios of ocean-island and mid-ocean ridge basalts and the preservation of solar neon are ascribed to the reservoir rocks being stretched and tapped to different extents during melting.     

Double flood basalts and plume head separation at the 660-kilometer discontinuity

Several of the world's flood basalt provinces display two distinct times of major eruptions separated by between 20 million and 90 million years. These double flood basalts may occur because a starting mantle plume head can separate from its trailing conduit upon passing the interface between the upper mantle and the lower mantle. This detached plume head eventually triggers the first flood basalt event. The remaining conduit forms a new plume head, which causes the second eruptive event. The second plume head is predicted to arrive at the lithosphere at least 10 million years after the first plume head, in general agreement with observations regarding double flood basalts.     

Vesicle-Specific Noble Gas Analyses of "Popping Rock": Implications for Primordial Noble Gases in Earth

Gases trapped in individual vesicles in the volatile-rich basaltic glass "popping rock" were found to have the same carbon dioxide, helium-4, and argon-40 composition, but a variable 40Ar/36Ar ratio ( approximately 4000 to >/=40,000). The argon-36 is probably surface-adsorbed atmospheric argon; any mantle argon-36 trapped in the vesicles cannot be distinguished from an atmospheric contaminant. Consequently the 40Ar/36Ar ratios and 3He/36Ar ratios (1.45) determined are minimum estimates of the upper mantle composition. Heavy noble gas relative abundances in the mantle resemble solar noble gas abundance patterns, and a solar origin may be common to all primordial mantle noble gases.     

Late cretaceous polar wander of the pacific plate: evidence of a rapid true polar wander event

We reexamined the Late Cretaceous-early Tertiary apparent polar wander path for the Pacific plate using 27 paleomagnetic poles from seamounts dated by (40)Ar/(39)Ar geochronology. The path shows little motion from 120 to 90 million years ago (Ma), northward motion from 79 to 39 Ma, and two groups of poles separated by 16 to 21 degrees with indistinguishable mean ages of 84 +/- 2 Ma. The latter phenomenon may represent a rapid polar wander episode (3 to 10 degrees per million years) whose timing is not adequately resolved with existing data. Similar features in other polar wander paths imply that the event was a rapid shift of the spin axis relative to the mantle (true polar wander), which may have been related to global changes in plate motion, large igneous province eruptions, and a shift in magnetic field polarity state.     

Lead and Helium Isotope Evidence from Oceanic Basalts for a Common Deep Source of Mantle Plumes

Linear arrays in lead isotope space for mid-ocean ridge basalts (MORBs) converge on a single end-member component that has intermediate lead, strontium, and neodymium isotope ratios compared with the total database for oceanic island basalts (OIBs) and MORBs. The MORB data are consistent with the presence of a common mantle source region for OIBs that is sampled by mantle plumes. 3He/4He ratios for MORBs show both positive and negative correlation with the 206Pb/204Pb ratios, depending on the MORB suite. These data suggest that the common mantle source is located in the transition zone region. This region contains recycled, oceanic crustal protoliths that incorporated some continental lead before their subduction during the past 300 to 2000 million years.     

Rapid emplacement of young oceanic lithosphere: argon geochronology of the oman ophiolite

(40)Ar/(39)Ar dates of emplacement-related metamorphic rocks beneath the Samail ophiolite in Oman show that cooling to <525 degrees C occurred within approximately 1 million years of igneous crystallization of the ophiolite. This unexpectedly short time span and rapid cooling means that old, cold continental or oceanic lithosphere must have been adjacent to the ophiolite during spreading and then been thrust beneath the ophiolite almost immediately afterward.     

Subduction and recycling of nitrogen along the Central American margin

We report N and He isotopic and relative abundance characteristics of volatiles emitted from two segments of the Central American volcanic arc. In Guatemala, delta15N values are positive (i.e., greater than air) and N2/He ratios are high (up to 25,000). In contrast, Costa Rican N2/He ratios are low (maximum 1483) and delta15N values are negative (minimum -3.0 per mil). The results identify shallow hemipelagic sediments, subducted into the Guatemalan mantle, as the transport medium for the heavy N. Mass balance arguments indicate that the subducted N is efficiently cycled to the atmosphere by arc volcanism. Therefore, the subduction zone acts as a "barrier" to input of sedimentary N to the deeper mantle.     

The Manson Impact Structure: 40Ar/39Ar Age and Its Distal Impact Ejecta in the Pierre Shale in Southeastern South Dakota

The (40)Ar/(39)Ar ages of a sanidine clast from a melt-matrix breccia of the Manson, Iowa, impact structure (MIS) indicate that the MIS formed 73.8 +/- 0.3 million years ago (Ma) and is not coincident with the Cretaceous-Tertiary boundary (64.43 +/- 0.05 Ma). The MIS sanidine is 9 million years older than (40)Ar/(39)Ar age spectra of MIS shock-metamorphosed microcline and melt-matrix breccia interpreted earlier to be 64 to 65 Ma. Grains of shock-metamorphosed quartz, feldspar, and zircon were found in the Crow Creek Member (upper Campanian) at a biostratigraphic level constrained by radiometric ages in the Pierre Shale of South Dakota that are consistent with the (40)Ar/(39)Ar age of 73.8 +/- 0.3 Ma for MIS reported herein.     

Sources of continental crust: neodymium isotope evidence from the sierra nevada and peninsular ranges

Granitic rocks from batholiths of the Sierra Nevada and Peninsular Ranges exhibit initial (143)Nd/(144)Nd ratios that vary over a large range and correlate with (87)Sr/(86)Sr ratios. The data suggest that the batholiths represent mixtures of materials derived from (i) chemically depleted mantle identical to the source of island arcs and (ii) old continental crust, probably sediments or metasediments with a provenance age of approximately 1.6 x 10(9) years. These conclusions are consistent with a model for continental growth whereby new crustal additions are repeatedly extracted from the same limited volume of the upper mantle, which has consequently become depleted in elements that are enriched in the crust. There is little evidence that hydrothermally altered, subducted oceanic crust is a primary source of the magmas.     

Lunar impact history from (40)Ar/(39)Ar dating of glass spherules

Lunar spherules are small glass beads that are formed mainly as a result of small impacts on the lunar surface; the ages of these impacts can be determined by the (40)Ar/(39)Ar isochron technique. Here, 155 spherules separated from 1 gram of Apollo 14 soil were analyzed using this technique. The data show that over the last approximately 3.5 billion years, the cratering rate decreased by a factor of 2 to 3 to a low about 500 to 600 million years ago, then increased by a factor of 3.7 +/- 1.2 in the last 400 million years. This latter period coincided with rapid biotic evolutionary radiation on Earth.     

Mantle plume helium in submarine basalts from the galapagos platform

Helium-3/helium-4 ratios in submarine basalt glasses from the Galapagos Archipelago range up to 23 times the atmospheric ratio in the west and southwest. These results indicate the presence of a relatively undegassed mantle plume at the Galápagos hot spot and place Galápagos alongside Hawaii, Iceland, and Samoa as the only localities known to have such high helium-3/helium-4 ratios. Lower ratios across the rest of the Galápagos Archipelago reflect systematic variations in the degree of dilution of the plume by entrainment of depleted material from the asthenosphere. These spatial variations reveal the dynamics of the underlying mantle plume and its interaction with the nearby Galápagos Spreading Center.     

Rubidium-strontium, uranium, and thorium-lead dating of lunar material

Rubidiuom and stronztiulm concentrations and strontium isotopic compositions have been measutred on whole rock samples and density fractions of microgabbro. Density fractionis on two rocks define isochrons of 3400 and 4500 million years with large uincertainties owing to low enrichment of radiogenic strontium. Lead from fine surface material is highly radiogenic. An age of 4750 million years has been calculated from the ratio of (207)Pb/(206)Pb. The concentrations of uiranium, thorium, and lead isotopes are consistent with the evolution of lead in a 4700-million-year-old closed system characterized by the ratios of uranium to lead and of thoriunm to lead in this sutrface material.