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Science 11 November 1983:
Vol. 222. no. 4624, pp. 613 - 615
DOI: 10.1126/science.222.4624.613
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Articles

Osmium-187/Osmium-186 in Manganese Nodules and the Cretaceous-Tertiary Boundary

J. M. LUCK 1 and K. K. TUREKIAN 1

1 Department of Geology and Geophysics, Yale University, Box 6666, New Haven, Connecticut 06511

As a result of the radioactive decay of rhenium-187 (4.6 x 1010 years) the osmium-187/osmium-186 ratio changes in planetary systems as a function of time and the rhenium-187/osmium-186 ratio. For a value of the rhenium-187/osmium-186 ratio of about 3.2, typical of meteorites and the earth's mantle, the present-day osmium-187/osmium-186 ratio is about 1. The earth's continental crust has an estimated rhenium-187/osmium-186 ratio of about 400, so that for a mean age of the continent of 2 x 109 years, a present-day osmium-187/osmium-186 ratio of about 10 is expected. Marine manganese nodules show values (6 to 8.4) compatible with this expectation if allowance for a 25 percent mantle osmium supply to the oceans is allowed. The Cretaceous-Tertiary boundary iridium-rich layer in the marine section at Stevns Klint, Denmark, yields an osmium-187/osmium-186 ratio of 1.65, and the one in a continental section in the Raton Basin, Colorado, is 1.29. The simplest explanation is that these represent osmium imprints of predominantly meteoritic origin.

Submitted on October 4, 1983
Accepted on October 18, 1983


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