Slow start of plate tectonics despite a hot early Earth

In the barren landscapes of NW Australia (in the so-called Pilbara Craton) the Cologne geologists examined rocks from the early phase of the earth (Archean).
(Photo: © Christian S. Marien)

Writing in PNAS, scientists from Cologne university present important new constraints showing that plate tectonics started relatively slow, although the early Earth’s interior was much hotter than today.

In an international collaboration earth scientists at the University of Cologne discovered that during Earth’s early history mantle convection on, i.e. the internal mixing of our planet, was surprisingly slow and spatially restricted. This finding is unexpected because our planet was much hotter during the first hundreds of million years after its formation.

Therefore, it has been assumed that mantle convection on Earth was much faster in its infancy. According to their study „Convective isolation of Hadean mantle reservoirs through Archean time“, however, the earth did not experience full speed mantle convection until 3 billion years ago, when modern plate tectonics is believed to have fully operated.

For their study, the geologists investigated up to 3.5 billion years old igneous rocks from NW Australia that cover 800 million years of Earths early history. The analysis of these rock successions revealed that the oldest samples exhibit small anomalies in the isotope abundances of the element tungsten (W) that progressively diminish with time. The origin of these anomalies, namely the relative abundance of 182W, relates to ancient heterogeneities in the terrestrial mantle that must have formed immediately after formation of the Earth more than 4.5 billion years ago.

The preservation of these 182W anomalies in the igneous rocks from NW Australia demonstrate that pristine mantle reservoirs from the beginning of our planet were conserved over timescales exceeding more than one billion years. This finding is very surprising, because higher mantle temperatures in the early Earth suggest that mantle convection was more extensive and much faster than today.

Interestingly, the observed 182W anomalies start to diminish at around 3 billion years ago, within a geological era that is assumed to mark the beginning of modern plate tectonics. The onset of modern plate tectonics, involving subduction processes and mountain uplift, has been shown to be a key event triggering the emergence of large continental masses and an oxygen-rich atmosphere, all of which set the stage for the origin of more complex life.

Wissenschaftliche Ansprechpartner:

Media contact:
Jonas Tusch
Institut für Geologie und Mineralogie
j.tusch@uni-koeln.de
+49 221 470-89864

Prof. Dr. Carsten Münker
Institut für Geologie und Mineralogie
+49 221 470-3198

Press and Communications Team:
Mathias Martin
+49 221 470-1705
m.martin@verw.uni-koeln.de

Originalpublikation:

https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2012626118

https://portal.uni-koeln.de/en/universitaet/aktuell/press-releases/single-news/slow-start-of-plate-tectonics-despite-a-hot-early-earth

Media Contact

Dr. Patrick Honecker Presse und Kommunikation

All latest news from the category:

Back to home

Comments (0)

Write a comment

Newest articles

New yttrium-hydrogen compounds discovered

Researchers at the University of Bayreuth have made a significant scientific breakthrough by discovering new yttrium-hydrogen compounds having serious implications for the research on high-pressure superconductivity. High-pressure superconductivity refers to…

New AI model detects ninety percent of lymphatic cancer cases

Medical image analysis using AI has developed rapidly in recent years. Now, one of the largest studies to date has been carried out using AI-assisted image analysis of lymphoma, cancer…

UTA preps giant particle detectors for neutrino project

Excavation of caverns part of Fermilab’s Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment. With excavation work complete at the site where four gigantic particle detectors for the international Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment (DUNE) will be…

Partners & Sponsors