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Subcontinental lithospheric mantle origin of high niobium/tantalum ratios in eclogites

Nature Geoscience volume 1, pages 468–472 (2008)Cite this article

Abstract

Ratios of non-volatile elements such as zirconium, niobium (Nb) and tantalum (Ta) in the unfractionated Earth are commonly assumed to be similar to those in the class of meteorites known as chondrites1. However, the Nb/Ta ratio of the Earth’s major silicate reservoirs—the crust and mantle—is subchondritic, hinting at the existence of a complementary reservoir with high Nb/Ta (refs 2, 3). Eclogites, which are high-pressure metamorphic rocks that often form in subduction zones, can contain the mineral rutile (titanium dioxide) with high Nb/Ta. They have therefore been inferred to constitute this complementary reservoir2. More recent evidence from natural samples, however, suggests that residual eclogites have low Nb/Ta, which is confirmed by experiments3,4,5,6. Here, we present the Nb and Ta concentrations and hafnium (Hf) isotope compositions of rutiles from eclogite fragments that were entrained from the subcontinental lithospheric mantle in kimberlite melts. Rutiles with high 176Hf/177Hf ratios generally have subchondritic Nb/Ta (<19.9 (refs 3, 7)), similar to undisturbed melt residues of broadly basaltic precursors. On the other hand, rutiles with suprachondritic Nb/Ta ratios have low 176Hf/177Hf, suggesting Hf addition from a fluid or melt ultimately derived from ancient (≥2.9 Gyr), chemically modified (metasomatized) subcontinental lithospheric mantle, which has similarly low 176Hf/177Hf (ref. 8). Our results suggest that eclogites are unlikely to represent the high Nb/Ta reservoir; instead, the high Nb/Ta signatures of some eclogites are probably generated by metasomatism during long-term residence in the subcontinental lithospheric mantle.

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Figure 1: Nb/Ta against minimum 176Hf/177Hf of rutile.
Figure 2: Whole-rock Lu/Hf of eclogites against average 176Hf/177Hf of rutile.

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Acknowledgements

Help with the analytical facilities by S. Elhlou, C. Lawson, A. Sharma and P. Wieland is gratefully acknowledged; Mattieu Choukron carried out the analyses of MARID rutiles. The manuscript benefited greatly from critical reviews by J. Pfänder. This work was financially supported by a Macquarie University International Postgraduate Award and Postgraduate Research Fund (S.A.), by an ARC SPIRT grant sponsored by Kennecott Canada, and by ARC Large and Discovery Grants to S.Y.O’R. and W.L.G. Analytical data were obtained using instrumentation funded by ARC LIEF, and DEST Systemic Infrastructure Grants, industry partners and Macquarie University. This is contribution 525 from the ARC National Key Centre for Geochemical Evolution and Metallogeny of Continents (www.es.mq.edu.au/GEMOC).

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  1. Sonja Aulbach

    Present address: Present address: University of Alberta, Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, Edmonton, Alberta, T6G 2E3, Canada,

  2. GEMOC ARC National Key Centre, Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences, Macquarie University, NSW 2109, Australia

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  1. Sonja Aulbach

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Correspondence to Sonja Aulbach.

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Aulbach, S., O’Reilly, S., Griffin, W. et al. Subcontinental lithospheric mantle origin of high niobium/tantalum ratios in eclogites. Nature Geosci 1, 468–472 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1038/ngeo226

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