Tungsten-182 heterogeneity in modern ocean island basalts

Andrea Mundl; Mathieu Touboul; Matthew G Jackson; James M D Day; Mark D Kurz; Vedran Lekic; Rosalind T Helz; Richard J Walker

doi:10.1126/science.aal4179

Tungsten-182 heterogeneity in modern ocean island basalts

Science. 2017 Apr 7;356(6333):66-69. doi: 10.1126/science.aal4179.

Authors

Andrea Mundl¹, Mathieu Touboul², Matthew G Jackson³, James M D Day⁴, Mark D Kurz⁵, Vedran Lekic⁶, Rosalind T Helz⁷, Richard J Walker⁶

Affiliations

¹ Department of Geology, University of Maryland, College Park, MD 20742, USA. amundl@umd.edu.
² Ecole Normale Supérieure de Lyon, 69364 Lyon Cedex 7, France.
³ Department of Earth Science, University of California, Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara, CA 93106, USA.
⁴ Scripps Institution of Oceanography, University of California, San Diego, La Jolla, CA 92093, USA.
⁵ Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, Woods Hole, MA 02543, USA.
⁶ Department of Geology, University of Maryland, College Park, MD 20742, USA.
⁷ U.S. Geological Survey, Reston, VA 20192, USA.

PMID: 28386009
DOI: 10.1126/science.aal4179

Abstract

New tungsten isotope data for modern ocean island basalts (OIB) from Hawaii, Samoa, and Iceland reveal variable ¹⁸²W/¹⁸⁴W, ranging from that of the ambient upper mantle to ratios as much as 18 parts per million lower. The tungsten isotopic data negatively correlate with ³He/⁴He. These data indicate that each OIB system accesses domains within Earth that formed within the first 60 million years of solar system history. Combined isotopic and chemical characteristics projected for these ancient domains indicate that they contain metal and are repositories of noble gases. We suggest that the most likely source candidates are mega-ultralow-velocity zones, which lie beneath Hawaii, Samoa, and Iceland but not beneath hot spots whose OIB yield normal ¹⁸²W and homogeneously low ³He/⁴He.

Publication types

Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't