*Katsuhiko Suzuki1,5, Madhusoodhan Satish-Kumar2, Trisrota Chaudhuri3, M. Jayananda4
(1.Submarine Resources Research Center, Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology, 2.Department of Geology, Faculty of Science, Niigata University, 3.Department of Geology, University of Calcutta, 4.Centre Earth and Space Sciences, University of Hyderabad, 5.Department of Earth Sciences, Graduate School of Science, Tohoku University)
Keywords:early evolution of mantle, W isotope, komatiite
Since Hf and W are lithophile and siderophile elements, Hf is likely to have remained in the silicate melt phase and W was preferentially partitioned to the metallic melt phase during the formation of the Earth's core. Such Hf-W fractionation is thought to have occurred before the disappearance of currently distinct 182Hf, and the values of μ182W (deviations from W standard in ppm) have been reported to show negative deviations from the present-day mantle value (μ182W =0) in ocean island basalts such as Hawaii and Samoa (e.g., Mundl et al., 2017; Takamasa et al., 2020). In contrast, most rocks originated at depths and older than 2.5 Ga show relatively uniform μ182W values of +10 to +20 (e.g., Willbold et al., 2011, Touboul et al., 2014, Liu et al., 2016, Mundl et al., 2018, Tusch et al., 2019). On the other hand, some komatiites, such as Schapenburg and Komati (both formed at 3.5 Ga), yield negative or have values near 0, respectively (Touboul et al., 2012, Puchtel et al., 2018). In addition, Mei et al. (2019) reported μ182W values near 0 for 3.0 Ga Anshan komatiite. Therefore, it is still highly debated on when and how the mantle has reached the present state.
In this study, we analyzed the W isotopes of 3.3 Ga Singhbhum and Dharwar komatiites from India to determine the W isotopic variations in the mantle during the period from 3.5 Ga to 3.0 Ga. The chemical separation of W was carried out using a method modified from Takamasa et al. (2020), and isotope analysis was performed by MC-ICP-MS (Thermofisher Scientific, NEPUTUNE Plus). The μ182W values ranged from -0.5 to +5.6 (n=3) and from -1.4 to +5.0 (n=4) for komatiites from the Singhbhum and Dharwar cratons, respectively. These values are also much smaller than the range of uniform μ182W values (from +10 to +15) for older rocks above 2.5 Ga, as discussed above. This result suggests that between 3.5 and 3.0 Ga, the primitive mantle with positive μ182W values may have been already sufficiently mixed with extraterrestrial materials such as Late Veneer with negative μ182W values that some domains of the mantle had the μ182W values of the present-day mantle. In other words, mantle convection may have been active as early as 3.5 Ga.