Ba, Rb and Cs in the Earth’s Mantle

Abstract

In 166 isotope dilution analyses of Ba, Rb, Cs on fresh basalts from mid-ocean ridges and oceanic islands, Ba/Rb and Cs/Rb ratios are nearly constant. From this, we conclude that Ba/Rb and Cs/Rb ratios are essentially constant in the present-day mantle in spite of large differences in the degree of source depletion or enrichment. As it appears improbable that these ratios could be both constant and non-primitive, we propose that they are representative of the primitive mantle and of the present-day crust-mantle system. We explain this uniformity of relative abundances as follows: the mantle is depleted by subtraction of a mobile phase such as a partial melt or an aqueous fluid. In either case, a significant amount of the mobile phase remains in the residue. Ba, Rb and Cs are among the most highly incompatible elements. Therefore the mobile phase cannot fractionate these elements relative to one another but retains the source ratios of Ba/Rb and Cs/Rb. Also, the amount of mobile phase remaining in the residue is enough to dominate the Ba, Rb and Cs concentrations in the residue. Consequently, neither the mobile phase nor the residue, nor any other portion of the mantle that may be enriched by addition of the mobile phase, will be changed in their relative abundances of Ba, Rb and Cs, even though the absolute abundances of these elements may change by orders of magnitude. The primitive Ba/Rb = 11.3 and Cs/Rb = 12.6 × 10−3 lead to the following estimates for the primitive mantle: Ba = 6.9 ppm (taken from Jagoutz et al. [1]), Rb = 0.61 ppm and Cs = 7.7 ppb. Assuming the earth has a chondritic Sr/Ba ratio of 3.08, we calculate a Rb/Sr ratio of 0.029 for the earth. This corresponds to a present-day 87Sr/86Sr of 0.7045. This value lies near the lower limit of the ratios estimated from the correlation of Nd and Sr isotopic abundances in oceanic basalts. The Cs/Rb ratios is about a factor of ten lower than the Cl-chondritic ratio and a factor of three lower than the lunar ratio. This low terrestrial Cs/Rb ratio should be matched by similar values in the continental crust. However, the large range of Cs/Rb ratios found in the crust prevent us from obtaining a meaningful mass balance. © 1983, Walter de Gruyter. All rights reserved.