Petrology articles within Nature

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  • Article |

    Olivines from Baffin Island lavas have the highest magmatic 3He/4He ratio measured so far in terrestrial igneous rocks, indicating that the helium in these lavas might derive from Earth’s core.

    • F. Horton
    • , P. D. Asimow
    •  & X. M. Boyes

  • Article |

    New experiments show that most carbonates in carbonate-rich crustal rocks survive devolatilization and hydrous melting in cold and warm subduction zones, demonstrating their role in driving the deep carbon and chlorine cycles since the Mesoproterozoic.

    • Chunfei Chen
    • , Michael W. Förster
    •  & Svyatoslav S. Shcheka

  • Article |

    Measurements from the Chang’e-1 and Chang’e-2 microwave instruments reveal an anomalously hot geothermal source on the Moon that is best explained by a roughly 50-kilometre-diameter granitic system below the geological feature known as Compton–Belkovich.

    • Matthew A. Siegler
    • , Jianqing Feng
    •  & Mackenzie N. White

  • Article |

    New thermodynamic and geochemical modelling of melting shows that the observed composition of the cratonic mantle can be reproduced by deep and very hot melting, obviating the need for shallow melting and lithospheric stacking.

    • Carl Walsh
    • , Balz S. Kamber
    •  & Emma L. Tomlinson

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Primitive lavas of the Fagradalsfjall eruption present a window into the deep roots of a magmatic system previously inaccessible to near-real-time investigation, showing that eruptible batches of basaltic magma mix on a timescale of weeks.

    • Sæmundur A. Halldórsson
    • , Edward W. Marshall
    •  & Andri Stefánsson

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Water abundance and hydrogen isotope compositions of two-billion-year-old basalt samples returned from the Moon by the Chang’e-5 mission suggest that the samples came from a relatively dry mantle source.

    • Sen Hu
    • , Huicun He
    •  & Ziyuan Ouyang

  • Letter |

    Variability in Earth’s thermal gradients, recorded by metamorphic rocks through time, shows that Earth’s modern plate tectonics developed gradually since the Neoarchaean era, three billion years ago.

    • Robert M. Holder
    • , Daniel R. Viete
    •  & Tim E. Johnson

  • Letter |

    The formation of Bermuda sampled a previously unknown mantle reservoir that is characterized by silica-undersaturated melts enriched in volatiles and by a unique lead isotopic signature, which suggests that the source is young.

    • Sarah E. Mazza
    • , Esteban Gazel
    •  & Alexander V. Sobolev

  • Article |

    High-resolution imaging techniques show that aromatic amino acids such as tryptophan formed abiotically and were subsequently preserved at depth beneath the Atlantis Massif of the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, supporting the hydrothermal theory for the origin of life.

    • Bénédicte Ménez
    • , Céline Pisapia
    •  & Matthieu Réfrégiers

  • Letter |

    During continent collision and associated mountain building, a surprisingly large volume of the lower crust is shown to be affected by earthquake aftershocks, producing a top-down effect on crustal geodynamics.

    • Bjørn Jamtveit
    • , Yehuda Ben-Zion
    •  & Håkon Austrheim

  • Letter |

    Phase equilibria modelling of rocks from Western Australia confirms that the ancient continental crust could have formed by multistage melting of basaltic ‘parents’ along high geothermal gradients—a process incompatible with modern-style subduction.

    • Tim E. Johnson
    • , Michael Brown
    •  & R. Hugh Smithies

  • Letter |

    The structure and accretion modes of two end-member types of oceanic lithosphere are described using a detailed seismicity survey along 390 kilometres of an ultraslow ridge axis, indicating deeper seismicity in amagmatic regions and explaining the uneven crustal production at ultraslow-spreading ridges.

    • Vera Schlindwein
    •  & Florian Schmid

  • Letter |

    Experiments show that carbonated oceanic crust subducting into the mantle will intersect the melting curve at depths of about 300 to 700 kilometres, creating a barrier to direct carbonate recycling into the deep mantle.

    • Andrew R. Thomson
    • , Michael J. Walter
    •  & Richard A. Brooker

  • Article |

    A global geochemical data set of volcanic and plutonic rocks indicates that differentiation trends from primitive basaltic to felsic compositions for volcanic versus plutonic samples are generally indistinguishable in subduction-zone settings, but are divergent in continental rifts.

    • C. Brenhin Keller
    • , Blair Schoene
    •  & Jon M. Husson

  • Letter |

    Electrical anisotropy measurements at high temperatures and quasi-hydrostatic pressures on previously deformed olivine plus melt samples show that electrical conductivity is much higher in the direction of deformation; this is confirmed with a layered electrical model of the asthenosphere and lithosphere that reproduces existing field data.

    • Anne Pommier
    • , Kurt Leinenweber
    •  & James A. Tyburczy

  • Letter |

    The slow gravitational collapse of early continents could have kick-started transient episodes of plate tectonics until, as the Earth’s interior cooled and oceanic lithosphere became heavier, plate tectonics became self-sustaining.

    • Patrice F. Rey
    • , Nicolas Coltice
    •  & Nicolas Flament

  • Letter |

    The age distributions of zircons (found in magmatic rocks) enable magma fluxes in the Earth’s crust to be calculated, providing insight into geological processes such as ore deposit formation and volcanic eruptions.

    • Luca Caricchi
    • , Guy Simpson
    •  & Urs Schaltegger

  • Letter |

    Determination of the electrical conductivity of carbon-dioxide- and water-rich melts, which are typically produced at the onset of mantle melting, shows that incipient melts can trigger the high electrical conductivities found in oceanic regions of the asthenosphere.

    • David Sifré
    • , Emmanuel Gardés
    •  & Fabrice Gaillard

  • Letter |

    We lack thermal histories for magma reservoirs, but here the magma under Mount Hood (Oregon, USA) is shown to have been too cold to mobilize for most of the time it has been stored, which implies that magma mobilizes (at which point it can be imaged geophysically) very quickly prior to eruption.

    • Kari M. Cooper
    •  & Adam J. R. Kent

  • Letter |

    Drilling by the Integrated Ocean Drilling Program has recovered primitive, modally layered, orthopyroxene-bearing cumulate rocks from the lower plutonic crust formed at a fast-spreading ridge, leading to a better-constrained estimate of the bulk composition of fast-spreading oceanic crust.

    • Kathryn M. Gillis
    • , Jonathan E. Snow
    •  & Robert P. Wintsch

  • Article |

    Several irregularly shaped craters located within Arabia Terra, Mars, are interpreted as a new type of highland volcanic construct, similar to supervolcanoes on Earth, fundamentally changing the picture of ancient volcanism and climate evolution on Mars.

    • Joseph R. Michalski
    •  & Jacob E. Bleacher

  • Letter |

    Large volumes of molten rock break through the Earth’s crust during continental breakup, and here it is shown that the cause is primarily very high mantle temperatures (under a thick plate), rather than plate thinning.

    • D. J. Ferguson
    • , J. Maclennan
    •  & G. Yirgu

  • Letter |

    Experimental evidence is presented which shows that water and hydrogen can coexist as two separate, immiscible phases in Earth’s mantle; such immiscibility might be responsible for the formation of enigmatic, extremely reducing domains inferred to exist in the mantle, and may provide a mechanism for the rapid oxidation of Earth’s upper mantle immediately following core formation.

    • Enikő Bali
    • , Andreas Audétat
    •  & Hans Keppler

  • Letter |

    Carbon-dioxide-rich kimberlitic melt explains the low velocity and high electrical conductivity of the mantle asthenosphere and controls the flux of incompatible elements at oceanic ridges.

    • Rajdeep Dasgupta
    • , Ananya Mallik
    •  & Marc M. Hirschmann

  • Letter |

    Several nickel-rich and helium-rich lava samples from ocean islands and large igneous provinces suggest that mantle plume material formed by core–mantle interaction during the crystallization of a melt-rich layer or basal magma ocean.

    • Claude Herzberg
    • , Paul D. Asimow
    •  & Dennis Geist

  • Letter |

    The oxygen fugacity of the deepest rock samples from Earth’s mantle is found to be more oxidized than previously thought, with the result that carbon in the asthenospheric mantle will be hosted as graphite or diamond but will be oxidized to produce carbonate melt through the reduction of Fe3+ in silicate minerals during upwelling.

    • Vincenzo Stagno
    • , Dickson O. Ojwang
    •  & Daniel J. Frost

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