Survival of presolar p-nuclide carriers in the nebula revealed by stepwise leaching of Allende refractory inclusions

The 87Rb-87Sr radiochronometer provides key insights into the timing of volatile element depletion in planetary bodies, yet the unknown nucleosynthetic origin of Sr anomalies in Ca-Al–rich inclusions (CAIs, the oldest dated solar system solids) challenges the reliability of resulting chronological interpretations. To identify the nature of these Sr anomalies, we performed step-leaching experiments on nine unmelted CAIs from Allende. In six CAIs, the chemically resistant residues (0.06 to 9.7% total CAI Sr) show extreme positive μ84Sr (up to +80,655) and 87Sr variations that cannot be explained by decay of 87Rb. The extreme 84Sr but more subdued 87Sr anomalies are best explained by the presence of a presolar carrier enriched in the p-nuclide 84Sr. We argue that this unidentified carrier controls the isotopic anomalies in bulk CAIs and outer solar system materials, which reinstates the chronological significance of differences in initial 87Sr/86Sr between CAIs and volatile-depleted inner solar system materials.

Origin and significance of the antimony mineralisation associated to mafic intrusions in the Iberian Zone and the Central Armorican Domain

<p>In the Central Iberian Zone (CIZ) and its French counterpart, the Central Armorican Domain (CAD), widespread swarms of mafic dykes with various ages and compositions are known. Indeed, numerous mafic events are recognized in the late Neoproterozoic, in the Cambrian to the Ordovician, in the Ordovician to the Devonian, at the Devonian-Carboniferous boundary, in the Permian and in the Jurassic. Such a succession of mantle partial melting events, localised or generalized, may have strong consequences (i) on the composition and the homogeneity of the mantle below both the CIZ and CAD, and (ii) on the transfert of metals in the overlying crust. Moreover, the mantle below these domains must have been modified also by the subduction of large to small oceanic crusts from the Iapetus, the Rheic, the Galicia-Moldanubian and the Paleo-tethys. Although the occurrences of paleo-subductions below the CIZ and CAD remain discussed, the southern border of the CIZ, the Ossa-Morena Zone (OMZ), is considered as a suture zone resulting from a subduction followed by a collision between 390 and 360 Ma (D1), according to the 2 opposite structural vergences at the CIZ/OMZ boundary, as well as the location of a NE-dipping slab imaged by seismic profiles. In the Armorican massif, the end of subduction is also dated at 360 Ma and associated to a north-directed subduction. The trace of this subduction below the CAD is visible in the tomographic dataset. Interestingly, these two domains (CIZ and CAD) contain the largest number of Palaeozoic antimony deposits, antimony being a volatile element. In these domains, the large clustering of antimony deposits and occurrences is observed within a ca 100km wide bands along their southern parts. In the two domains, the antimony deposits are frequently spatially associated with diabase dykes. Diabase dykes and associated antimony mineralisation have been dated at 360 Ma in the CAD but remain temporally unconstrained in the CIZ. Nevertheless, since these dykes are strongly affected by the Variscan deformation a minimum age of 350 Ma is inferred. Both, the peculiar composition of these diabase dykes, relatively enriched in Cs, Li, Pb and relatively depleted in K and Rb, the spatial association with antimony at the end of a 360Ma subduction, suggest a link between antimony and a ca 360Ma mafic magmatism which could result from the partial melting of a subduction-related metasomatized mantle.</p><p>This work was funded by the ANR (ANR-19-MIN2-0002), the AEI (MICIU/AEI/REF.: PCI2019-103779), the FCT (ERA-MIN/0005/2018) and author’s institutions in the framework of the ERA-MIN2 AUREOLE project (https://aureole.brgm.fr).</p>

Evidence for contemporaneous Deccan volcanic aerosol deposition preceding the K-Pg boundary at El Kef, Tunisia

<p>The cause of the Cretaceous-Paleogene extinction remains debated between an asteroid impact and volcanism. Precise geochronology showed that the extinction coincided with a voluminous phase (Poladpur eruption) of Deccan volcanism (Schoene et al., 2019). Paleontological evidence indicates that microfossil diversity declined about 300,000 years before the K-Pg boundary, synchronous with the onset of Deccan volcanism (Keller et al. 2009). High concentrations of Ir in the K-Pg boundary supported the asteroid hypothesis but recent work indicates that siderophile accumulation at the K-Pg in El Kef is secondary (Humayun et al., this conf.). Here, we critically examine existing element data for the K-Pg boundary and examine new results at the El Kef site, Tunisia, for volcanogenic volatile element accumulation associated with the contemporaneous Deccan eruptions. In this study, we analyzed 60 elements by laser ablation ICP-MS in search of these volcanic aerosol enrichments in the K-Pg sediments at El Kef, Tunisia. A study of siderophile element distribution at global K-Pg sites found that the Ru/Ir ratio is sub-chondritic. Mixing of upper continental crust (Ru/Ir> CI) with a chondritic impactor fails to explain this trend. Volcanic aerosol emissions for Ir are well known but there is less data available for Ru. Relative emission rates of Ru were found to be lower than those of Ir for the Kudryavy volcano (Yudovskaya et al., 2008), so a possible explanation of the sub-chondritic Ru/Ir ratio observed in global K-Pg sites involves deposition of volcanic aerosols in sediments. We also modeled the effect of adding volcanic aerosols to sediments approximated compositionally as upper continental crust (UCC) to find that Re, Cd, Os and Ir are the first elements to become enriched in sediments by volcanogenic aerosol deposition. Sediments from El Kef below the K-Pg boundary are enriched in both Re and Cd. On a plot of Cd vs. Re, the K-Pg sediment from El Kef falls on a mixing line between volcanic aerosol (Erta Ale volcano) and UCC. Sediment at 3 cm above the K-Pg boundary has little enrichment of either Cd or Re, interpreted here to indicate that this sediment was deposited in the interlude between the Poladpur and the Ambenali eruption phases of the Deccan. The availability of chemical proxies of volcanogenic aerosol deposition in sediments enables direct correlation between fossil evidence and the contemporaneous intensity of volcanic outgassing, the likely destroyer of life by the Deccan eruptions (Keller et al., 2020).</p>