Deep mantle control on early planetary surface evolution

  • Deep mantle control on early planetary surface evolution

Project title:

  • Deep mantle control on early planetary surface evolution

 

Project summary:

Funded by ARC Discovery Grant DP220100136, this project seeks to understand the connections between the unique volcanic rocks erupted on the early Earth surface and the mantle sources that have fed them. The team is using computational, experimental and empirical petrology and geochemistry and computer-assisted mineralogy (see image) in combination with field-based studies to tease out the conditions under which the early mantle melted. We also continue our studies into the effects of changing volcanic chemistry on the biogeochemical evolution of the early Earth.

 

Featured image:

Ray traced maximum intensity cross polarised light image of a 52 x 26mm thin section of an ancient cratonic mantle rock (harzburgite). This shows very large orthopyroxene crystals interpreted to have formed during interaction of very hot deep magma with resident lithospheric mantle (credit: Azevedo and Kamber, Minerals, under review).

 

Chief Investigators:

 

Team

  • Carl Walsh
  • Marco Acevedo

 

Collaborators

 

Notable publications:

Konhauser, K.O., Pecoits, E., Lalonde, S.V., Papineau, D., Nisbet, E.G., Barley, M.E., Arndt, N.T., Zahnle, K. and Kamber, B.S., 2009. Oceanic nickel depletion and a methanogen famine before the Great Oxidation Event. Nature, 458(7239), pp.750-753.

Kamber, B.S., 2010. Archean mafic–ultramafic volcanic landmasses and their effect on ocean–atmosphere chemistry. Chemical Geology, 274(1-2), pp.19-28.

Kamber, B.S. and Tomlinson, E.L., 2019. Petrological, mineralogical and geochemical peculiarities of Archaean cratons. Chemical Geology, 511, pp.123-151.

Tomlinson, E.L. and Kamber, B.S., 2021. Depth-dependent peridotite-melt interaction and the origin of variable silica in the cratonic mantle. Nature communications, 12(1), pp.1-15.

Austin, J.M., Hayman, P.C., Murphy, D.T., Wingate, M.T.D., Lu, Y., Lowrey, J. and Rose, K., 2022. The voluminous 2.81–2.71 Ga Goldfields Tholeiitic Super Event: Implications for basin architecture in the Yilgarn Craton and global correlations. Precambrian Research, 369, p.106528.