Highly siderophile elements were stripped from Earth's mantle by iron sulfide segregation

David C. Rubie*, Vera Laurenz, Seth A. Jacobson, Alessandro Morbidelli, Herbert Palme, Antje K. Vogel, Daniel J. Frost

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

88 Scopus citations

Abstract

Highly siderophile elements (HSEs) are strongly depleted in the bulk silicate Earth (BSE) but are present in near-chondritic relative abundances. The conventional explanation is that the HSEs were stripped fromthe mantle by the segregation of metal during core formation but were added back in near-chondritic proportions by late accretion, after core formation had ceased. Here we show that metal-silicate equilibration and segregation during Earth's core formation actually increased HSE mantle concentrations because HSE partition coefficients are relatively low at the high pressures of core formation within Earth. The pervasive exsolution and segregation of iron sulfide liquid from silicate liquid (the "Hadean matte") stripped magma oceans of HSEs during cooling and crystallization, before late accretion, and resulted in slightly suprachondritic palladium/iridium and ruthenium/iridium ratios.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Pages (from-to)1141-1144
Number of pages4
JournalScience
Volume353
Issue number6304
DOIs
StatePublished - Sep 9 2016

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • General

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