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Science 25 April 1997:
Vol. 276. no. 5312, pp. 568 - 571
DOI: 10.1126/science.276.5312.568
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Reports

Vesicle-Specific Noble Gas Analyses of "Popping Rock": Implications for Primordial Noble Gases in Earth

Pete Burnard, * David Graham, Grenville Turner

Gases trapped in individual vesicles in the volatile-rich basaltic glass "popping rock" were found to have the same carbon dioxide, helium-4, and argon-40 composition, but a variable 40Ar/36Ar ratio (~4000 to >=40,000). The argon-36 is probably surface-adsorbed atmospheric argon; any mantle argon-36 trapped in the vesicles cannot be distinguished from an atmospheric contaminant. Consequently the 40Ar/36Ar ratios and 3He/36Ar ratios (1.45) determined are minimum estimates of the upper mantle composition. Heavy noble gas relative abundances in the mantle resemble solar noble gas abundance patterns, and a solar origin may be common to all primordial mantle noble gases.

P. Burnard and G. Turner, Department of Earth Sciences, University of Manchester, Manchester M13 9PL, UK.
D. Graham, College of Oceanic and Atmospheric Sciences, Oregon State University, Corvallis, OR 97331, USA.
*   To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: peteb{at}man.ac.uk

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