Abstract
Understanding the growth rate of the continental crust through time is a fundamental issue in Earth sciences1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8. The isotopic signatures of noble gases in the silicate Earth (mantle, crust) and in the atmosphere afford exceptional insight into the evolution through time of these geochemical reservoirs9. However, no data for the compositions of these reservoirs exists for the distant past, and temporal exchange rates between Earth’s interior and its surface are severely under-constrained owing to a lack of samples preserving the original signature of the atmosphere at the time of their formation. Here, we report the analysis of argon in Archaean (3.5-billion-year-old) hydrothermal quartz. Noble gases are hosted in primary fluid inclusions containing a mixture of Archaean freshwater and hydrothermal fluid. Our analysis reveals Archaean atmospheric argon with a 40Ar/36Ar value of 143 ± 24, lower than the present-day value of 298.6 (for which 40Ar has been produced by the radioactive decay of the potassium isotope 40K, with a half-life of 1.25 billion years; 36Ar is primordial in origin). This ratio is consistent with an early development of the felsic crust, which might have had an important role in climate variability during the first half of Earth’s history.
This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution
Access options
Subscribe to this journal
Receive 51 print issues and online access
$199.00 per year
only $3.90 per issue
Buy this article
- Purchase on Springer Link
- Instant access to full article PDF
Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Dhuime, B., Hawkesworth, C. J., Cawood, P. A. & Storey, C. D. A change in the geodynamics of continental growth 3 billion years ago. Science 335, 1334–1336 (2012)
Hawkesworth, C. J. & Kemp, A. I. S. The differentiation and rates of generation of the continental crust. Chem. Geol. 226, 134–143 (2006)
Armstrong, R. L. & Harmon, R. S. Radiogenic isotopes: the case for crustal recycling on a near-steady-state no-continental-growth Earth. Phil. Trans. R. Soc. Lond. A 301, 443–472 (1981)
Hurley, P. M. & Rand, J. R. Pre-drift continental nuclei. Science 164, 1229–1242 (1969)
McLennan, S. M. & Taylor, R. S. Geochemical constraints on the growth of the continental crust. J. Geol. 90, 347–361 (1982)
Reymer, A. & Schubert, G. Phanerozoic addition rates to the continental crust and crustal growth. Tectonics 3, 63–77 (1984)
Allègre, C. J. & Rousseau, D. The growth of the continent through geological time studied by Nd isotope analysis of shales. Earth Planet. Sci. Lett. 67, 19–34 (1984)
Condie, K. C., Bickford, M. E., Aster, R. C., Belousova, E. & Scholl, D. W. Episodic zircon ages, Hf isotopic composition, and the preservation rate of continental crust. Geol. Soc. Am. Bull. 123, 951–957 (2011)
Hamano, Y. & Ozima, M. in Terrestrial Rare Gases (eds Alexander, E. C. & Ozima, M. ) Adv. Earth Planet. Sci. Jpn. Sci. Soc. 3, 155–171 (1978)
Lee, J.-Y. et al. A redetermination of the isotopic abundances of atmospheric Ar. Geochim. Cosmochim. Acta 70, 4507–4512 (2006)
Ozima, M. & Podosek, F. A. Noble Gas Geochemistry (Cambridge Univ. Press, 2001)
Arevalo, R., Jr, McDonough, W. F. & Luong, M. The K/U ratio of the silicate Earth: insights into mantle composition, structure and thermal evolution. Earth Planet. Sci. Lett. 278, 361–369 (2009)
Fanale, F. P. A case for catastrophic early degassing of the Earth. Chem. Geol. 8, 79–105 (1971)
Pepin, R. O. Atmospheres on the terrestrial planets: clues to origin and evolution. Earth Planet. Sci. Lett. 252, 1–14 (2006)
Tolstikhin, I. N. & Marty, B. The evolution of terrestrial volatiles: a view from helium, neon, argon and nitrogen isotope modeling. Chem. Geol. 147, 27–52 (1998)
Porcelli, D. & Wasserburg, G. J. Mass transfer of helium, neon, argon, and xenon through a steady-state upper mantle. Geochim. Cosmochim. Acta 59, 4921–4937 (1995)
Allègre, C. J., Staudacher, T. & Sarda, P. Rare gas systematics: formation of the atmosphere, evolution and structure of the Earth's mantle. Earth Planet. Sci. Lett. 81, 127–150 (1987)
Cadogan, P. H. Paleoatmospheric argon in Rhynie chert. Nature 268, 38–41 (1977)
Rice, C. M. et al. A Devonian auriferous hot spring system, Rhynie, Scotland. J. Geol. Soc. Lond. 152, 229–250 (1995)
Bender, M. L., Barnett, B., Dreyfus, G., Jouzel, J. & Porcelli, D. The contemporary degassing rate of Ar-40 from the solid Earth. Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA 105, 8232–8237 (2008)
Buick, R. & Dunlop, J. S. R. Evaporitic sediments of early Archaean age from the Warrawoona Group, North Pole, Western Australia. Sedimentology 37, 247–277 (1990)
Foriel, J. et al. Biological control of Cl/Br and low sulfate concentration in a 3.5-Ga-old seawater from North Pole, Western Australia. Earth Planet. Sci. Lett. 228, 451–463 (2004)
Turner, G. Hydrothermal fluids and argon isotopes in quartz veins and cherts. Geochim. Cosmochim. Acta 52, 1443–1448 (1988)
Van Kranendonk, M. J., Philippot, P., Lepot, K., Bodorkos, S. & Parajno, F. Geological setting of Earth's oldest fossils in the ca. 3.5 Ga Dresser Formation, Pilbara Craton, Western Australia. Precambr. Res. 167, 93–124 (2008)
Tessalina, S. G., Bourdon, B., Van Kranendonk, M. V., Birck, J. L. & Philippot, P. Influence of Hadean crust evident in basalts and cherts from the Pilbara Craton. Nature Geosci. 3, 214–217 (2010)
Thorpe, R. I., Hickman, A. H., Davis, D. W., Mortensen, J. K. & Trendall, A. F. U-Pb zircon geochronology of Archaean felsic units in the Marble Bar region, Pilbara Craton, Western Australia. Precambr. Res. 56, 169–189 (1992)
Pujol, M., Marty, B., Burnard, P. & Philippot, P. Xenon in Archaean barite: weak decay of 130Ba, mass-dependent isotopic fractionation and implication for barite formation. Geochim. Cosmochim. Acta 73, 6834–6846 (2009)
Pujol, M., Marty, B. & Burgess, R. Chondritic-like xenon trapped in Archaean rocks: a possible signature of the ancient atmosphere. Earth Planet. Sci. Lett. 308, 298–306 (2011)
York, D. Least-squares fitting of a straight line. Can. J. Phys. 44, 1079–1086 (1966)
Kasting, J. F. Faint young Sun redux. Nature 464, 687–689 (2010)
Kendrick, M. A., Burgess, R., Pattrick, R. A. D. & Turner, G. Halogen and Ar-Ar age determinations of inclusions within quartz veins from porphyry copper deposits using complementary noble gas extractions. Chem. Geol. 177, 351–370 (2001)
Srinivasan, B. Barites: anomalous xenon from spallation and neutron-induced reactions. Earth Planet. Sci. Lett. 31, 129–141 (1976)
Meshik, A. P., Hohenberg, C. M., Pravdivtseva, O. V. & Kapusta, Y. S. Weak decay of 130Ba and 132Ba: geochemical measurements. Phys. Rev. C 64, 035205 (2001)
Heber, V. S., Brooker, R. A., Kelley, S. P. & Wood, B. J. Crystal-melt partitioning of noble gases (helium, neon, argon, krypton, and xenon) for olivine and clinopyroxene. Geochim. Cosmochim. Acta 71, 1041–1061 (2007)
Boyet, M. & Carlson, R. W. 142Nd evidence for early (>4.53 Ga) global differentiation of the silicate. Earth Sci. 309, 576–581 (2005)
Caro, G., Bourdon, B., Birk, J. L. & Moorbath, S. 146Sm-142Nd evidence from Isua metamorphosed sediments for early differentiation of Earth’s mantle. Nature 423, 428–432 (2003)
Fyfe, W. S. Evolution of the Earth’s crust: modern plate tectonics to ancient hot spot tectonics? Chem. Geol. 23, 89–114 (1978)
Hurley, P. M. Absolute abundance and distribution of Rb, K and Sr in the Earth. Geochim. Cosmochim. Acta 32, 273–283 (1968)
Veizer, J. & Jansen, S. L. Basement and sedimentary recycling and continental evolution. J. Geol. 87, 341–370 (1979)
Acknowledgements
We thank D. Blagburn and L. Zimmermann for their technical support with the irradiated samples measurements, and M. Derrien and B. Faure for their help with the conception of the degassing model. This project was funded by the CNRS, the Région Lorraine, the ANR (Agence Nationale pour la Recherche) projects “e-Life” and “e-Life2” to P.P. and by the European Research Council under the European Community's Seventh Framework Program (FP7/2007–2013 grant agreement number 267255 to B.M. The drilling programme was supported by funds from the Institut de Physique du Globe de Paris (IPGP) and the CNRS, and by the Geological Survey of Western Australia (GSWA). This is Centre de Recherches Géochimiques et Pétrographiques (CRPG) contribution number 2239.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Contributions
M.P. and R.B. performed the experiments and analysed the data. P.P. provided the sample and characterized the fluid inclusions. M.P. and B.M. did the calculations and the modelling, and wrote the paper. All authors commented on the manuscript.
Corresponding author
Ethics declarations
Competing interests
The authors declare no competing financial interests.
Supplementary information
Supplementary Information
This file contains Supplementary Figures 1-5, Supplementary Tables 1-4 and additional references. (PDF 992 kb)
PowerPoint slides
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Pujol, M., Marty, B., Burgess, R. et al. Argon isotopic composition of Archaean atmosphere probes early Earth geodynamics. Nature 498, 87–90 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1038/nature12152
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/nature12152
This article is cited by
-
Earth’s missing argon paradox resolved by recycling of oceanic crust
Nature Geoscience (2022)
-
Redox geodynamics in Earth’s interior
Science China Earth Sciences (2022)
-
Geochemical evidence for a widespread mantle re-enrichment 3.2 billion years ago: implications for global-scale plate tectonics
Scientific Reports (2020)
-
Do Supercontinent-Superplume Cycles Control the Growth and Evolution of Continental Crust?
Journal of Earth Science (2020)
-
Is the Faint Young Sun Problem for Earth Solved?
Space Science Reviews (2020)
Comments
By submitting a comment you agree to abide by our Terms and Community Guidelines. If you find something abusive or that does not comply with our terms or guidelines please flag it as inappropriate.