Melting of wet lithosphere
Article Abstract:
A new geophysical model involving water in the lithosphere may explain the periodic floods of basalt that occurred in eight parts of the Earth's surface during the last 250 million years. Geophysicists have long sought to account for the source of the magma that produced the basaltic floods. The main argument against a lithospheric source was that the temperatures prevailing in the lithosphere were too high to melt the magma. Now K. Gallagher and C. Hawkesworth have suggested that water in the mantle may reduce the melting point of magma rocks sufficiently to produce the flooding.
Publication Name: Nature
Subject: Zoology and wildlife conservation
ISSN: 0028-0836
Year: 1992
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A matter of give and take
Article Abstract:
How melt segregation and migration determine the chemical composition of magma and of the rocks the magma flows through is now known in greater detail. Natsuko Takahashi showed that the movement of extremely hot molten rock through a fracture melts the adjacent rock. E. Takazawa and colleagues found that the Horoman complex in Japan is an example of mantle rock with unexpectedly high levels of incompatible trace elements that will influence geochemical exchanges. P.B. Kelemen and colleagues found that a porous flow characterizes magmatic interactions.
Publication Name: Nature
Subject: Zoology and wildlife conservation
ISSN: 0028-0836
Year: 1992
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How the Earth's mantle could lie about its age
Article Abstract:
Geochemical heterogeneity is used as a basis for inferring the age of planet Earth, providing data about the timing of the separation of the Earth into its compositionally distinct layers of core, mantle, crust, hydrosphere and atmosphere. However, a study of Pb isotope data for the oceanic basalts of the Ninetyeast Ridge showed that the assumption of geochemical heterogeneity for the mantle could lead to erroneous assessments of mantle age.
Publication Name: Nature
Subject: Zoology and wildlife conservation
ISSN: 0028-0836
Year: 1993
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