Slab melting: Its role in continental crust formation and mantle evolution

Subduction erosion: Rates, mechanisms, and its role in arc magmatism and the evolution of the continental crust and mantle

Continental crust formation at arcs, the arclogite ‘‘delamination’’ cycle, and one origin for fertile melting anomalies in the mantle

The total magmatic output in modern arcs, where continental crust is now being formed, is believed to derive from melting of the mantle wedge and is largely basaltic. Globally averaged continental crust, however, has an andesitic bulk composition and is hence too silicic to have been derived directly from the mantle. It is well known that one way this imbalance can be reconciled is if the paren...

Oceanic slab melting and mantle metasomatism.

Modern plate tectonic brings down oceanic crust along subduction zones where it either dehydrates or melts. Those hydrous fluids or melts migrate into the overlying mantle wedge trigerring its melting which produces arc magmas and thus additional continental crust. Nowadays, melting seems to be restricted to cases of young (< 50 Ma) subducted plates. Slab melts are silicic and strongly sodic (t...

Chemical differentiation of the Earth: the relationship between mantle, continental crust, and oceanic crust

The average chemical compositions of the continental crust and the oceanic crust (represented by MORB), normalized to primitive mantle values and plotted as functions of the apparent bulk partition coefficient of each element, form surprisingly simple, complementary concentration patterns. In the continental crust, the maximum concentrations are on the order of 50 to 100 times the primitive-man...

Long-Term Evolution of the Martian Crust-Mantle System

Lacking plate tectonics and crustal recycling, the long-term evolution of the crustmantle system of Mars is driven by mantle convection, partial melting, and silicate differentiation. Volcanic landforms such as lava flows, shield volcanoes, volcanic cones, pyroclastic deposits, and dikes are observed on the martian surface, and while activity was widespread during the late Noachian and Hesperia...