Other
Scientific paper
Jul 1971
adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=1971gecoa..35..679r&link_type=abstract
Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta, vol. 35, Issue 7, pp.679-685
Other
2
Scientific paper
(1968, 1969) devised a calculation which enables the ratio K / Rb for the earth to be inferred from surface abundances of rubidium and argon. The significance of his calculated limit ( K / Rb less than about 400) is in doubt because the partition of argon between crust and mantle depends on the migration of potassium as well as argon. The present paper elaborates the model to include the concentration to the surface of the coupled system argonpotassium. For the case where the rate constants are equal for potassium and rubidium, but less than the outgassing rate for argon, a limiting value of 480 is obtained. This is the same value that we obtain for 's model. For the case in which rubidium is concentrated to the surface more rapidly than potassium, but less rapidly than argon, a higher limiting value of 710 is obtained. Values as high as 1800 are observed for K / Rb in oceanic tholeiite, which fact has been used to argue a high value for the whole earth. However, analyses of ultramafic inclusions (e.g. and , 1966) have given values consistently lower than 550. Since rubidium is probably highly concentrated in the earth's crust, the average for the crust and the part of the mantle with which it interacts will be weighted heavily toward crustal values. Therefore, it is not clear that our limiting value of 710 is in conflict with other geochemical data. However, if this should prove to be the case, then it seems necessary to conclude that the major outgassing of argon and differentiation of the alkalis took place in a greatly restricted (probably early) part of the earth's history.
Ozima Minoru
Russell David R.
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