Fractionation of rhenium from osmium during noble metal alloy formation in association with sulfides: Implications for the interpretation of model ages in alloy-bearing magmatic rocks

Although Earth's continental crust is thought to derive from melting of the Earth's mantle, how the crust has formed and the timing of its formation are not well understood. The main difficulty in understanding how the crust was extracted from the Earth's mantle is that most isotope systems recorded in mantle rocks have been disturbed by crustal recycling, metasomatic activity and dilution of the signal by mantle convection. In this regard, important age constraints can be obtained from Re-Os model ages in platinum group minerals (PGM), as Re-poor and Os-rich PGM show evidence of melting events up to 4.1 Ga. To constrain the origin of the Re-Os fractionation and Os isotope systematics of natural PGM, we have investigated the linkage between sulfide and PGM grains of variable composition via a series of high-temperature experiments carried out at 1 bar. We show that with the exception of laurite, all experimentally-produced PGM, in particular Pt3Fe (isoferroplatinum) and Pt-Ir metal grains, are systematically richer in Re than their sulfide precursors and will develop radiogenic 187Os/188Os signatures over time relative to their host base metal sulfides. Cooling of an PGM-saturated sulfide assemblage shows a tendency to amplify the extent of Re-Os fractionation between PGM and the different sulfide phases present during cooling. Conversely, laurite grains (RuS2) are shown to accept little to no Re in them and their Os isotope composition changes little over time as a result. Laurite is therefore the PGM that provides the most robust Re-depletion ages in mantle lithologies. Our results are broadly consistent with observations made on natural PGM, where laurites are systematically less radiogenic than Pt-rich PGM. These experimental results highlight the need for the acquisition of large datasets for both mantle materials and ophiolite-derived detrital grains that include measurements of the Os isotope composition of minerals rich in highly siderophile elements at the grain scale (i.e. PGM and base metal sulfides). Only with such datasets is it possible to identify past episodes of mantle melting.SCOPUS: ar.jinfo:eu-repo/semantics/publishe

Redox dependent behaviour of molybdenum during magmatic processes in the terrestrial and lunar mantle: Implications for the Mo/W of the bulk silicate Moon

We present results of high-temperature olivine-melt, pyroxene-melt and plagioclase-melt partitioning experiments aimed at investigating the redox transition of Mo in silicate systems. Data for a series of other minor and trace elements (Sc, Ba, Sr, Cr, REE, Y, HFSE, U, Th and W) were also acquired to constrain the incorporation of Mo in silicate minerals. All experiments were carried out in vertical tube furnaces at 1 bar and temperatures ranging from ca. 1220 to 1300 degrees C. Oxygen fugacity was controlled via CO-CO2 gas mixtures and varied systematically from 5.5 log units below to 1.9 log units above the fayalite-magnetite-quartz (FMQ) redox buffer thereby covering the range in oxygen fugacities of terrestrial and lunar basalt genesis. Molybdenum is shown to be volatile at oxygen fugacities above FMQ and that its compatibility in pyroxene and olivine increases three orders of magnitude towards the more reducing conditions covered in this study. The partitioning results show that Mo is dominantly tetravalent at redox conditions below FMQ-4 and dominantly hexavalent at redox conditions above FMQ. Given the differences in oxidation states of the terrestrial (oxidized) and lunar (reduced) mantles, molybdenum will behave significantly differently during basalt genesis in the Earth (i.e. highly incompatible; average D-Mo(peridotite/melt) similar to 0.008) and Moon (i.e. moderately incompatible/compatible; average D-Mo(peridotite/melt) similar to 0.6). Thus, it is expected that Mo will strongly fractionate from W during partial melting in the lunar mantle, given that W is broadly incompatible at FMQ-5. Moreover, the depletion of Mo and the Mo/W range in lunar samples can be reproduced by simply assuming a primitive Earth-like Mo/W for the bulk silicate Moon. Such a lunar composition is in striking agreement with the Moon being derived from the primitive terrestrial mantle after core formation on Earth. (C) 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved