Implications of Subduction Rehydration for Earth's Deep Water Cycle

Lars Rüpke, Jason Phipps Morgan, Jacqueline Eaby Dixon

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingChapter

Abstract

The “standard model” for the genesis of the oceans is that they are exhalations from Earth’s deep interior continually rinsed through surface rocks by the global hydrologic cycle. No general consensus exists, however, on the water distribution within the deeper mantle of the Earth. Recently Dixon et al. [2002] estimated water concentrations for some of the major mantle components and concluded that the most primitive (FOZO) are significantly wetter than the recycling associated EM or HIMU mantle components and the even drier depleted mantle source that melts to form MORB. These findings are in striking agreement with the results of numerical modeling of the global water cycle that are presented here. We find that the Dixon et al. [2002] results are consistent with a global water cycle model in which the oceans have formed by efficient outgassing of the mantle. Present-day depleted mantle will contain a small volume fraction of more primitive wet mantle in addition to drier recycling related enriched components. This scenario is consis-tent with the observation that hotspots with a FOZO-component in their source will make wetter basalts than hotspots whose mantle sources contain a larger fraction of EM and HIMU components.

Original languageAmerican English
Title of host publicationEarth's Deep Water Cycle
DOIs
StatePublished - Jan 1 2006
Externally publishedYes

Keywords

  • Groundwater
  • Earth—Mantle
  • Hydrologic cycle
  • Geodynamics
  • Geology

Disciplines

  • Life Sciences

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