Author Correction: Forearc carbon sink reduces long-term volatile recycling into the mantle.

An Amendment to this paper has been published and can be accessed via a link at the top of the paper.

Author Correction: Forearc carbon sink reduces long-term volatile recycling into the mantle.

Change history: In this Article, the original affiliation 2 was not applicable and has been removed. In addition, in the Acknowledgements there was a statement missing and an error in a name. These errors have been corrected online.

Forearc carbon sink reduces long-term volatile recycling into the mantle.

Carbon and other volatiles in the form of gases, fluids or mineral phases are transported from Earth's surface into the mantle at convergent margins, where the oceanic crust subducts beneath the continental crust. The efficiency of this transfer has profound implications for the nature and scale of geochemical heterogeneities in Earth's deep mantle and shallow crustal reservoirs, as well as Earth's oxidation state. However, the proportions of volatiles released from the forearc and backarc are not well constrained compared to fluxes from the volcanic arc front. Here we use helium and carbon isotope data from deeply sourced springs along two cross-arc transects to show that about 91 per cent of carbon released from the slab and mantle beneath the Costa Rican forearc is sequestered within the crust by calcite deposition. Around an additional three per cent is incorporated into the biomass through microbial chemolithoautotrophy, whereby microbes assimilate inorganic carbon into biomass. We estimate that between 1.2 × 108 and 1.3 × 1010 moles of carbon dioxide per year are released from the slab beneath the forearc, and thus up to about 19 per cent less carbon is being transferred into Earth's deep mantle than previously estimated.

Upper-mantle volatile chemistry at Oldoinyo Lengai volcano and the origin of carbonatites.

Carbonatite lavas are highly unusual in that they contain almost no SiO(2) and are >50 per cent carbonate minerals. Although carbonatite magmatism has occurred throughout Earth's history, Oldoinyo Lengai, in Tanzania, is the only currently active volcano producing these exotic rocks. Here we show that volcanic gases captured during an eruptive episode at Oldoinyo Lengai are indistinguishable from those emitted along mid-ocean ridges, despite the fact that Oldoinyo Lengai carbonatites occur in a setting far removed from oceanic spreading centres. In contrast to lithophile trace elements, which are highly fractionated by the immiscible phase separation that produces these carbonatites, volatiles (CO(2), He, N(2) and Ar) are little affected by this process. Our results demonstrate that a globally homogenous reservoir exists in the upper mantle and supplies volatiles to both mid-ocean ridges and continental rifts. This argues against an unusually C-rich mantle being responsible for the genesis of Na-rich carbonatite and its nephelinite source magma at Oldoinyo Lengai. Rather, these carbonatites are formed in the shallow crust by immiscibility from silicate magmas (nephelinite), and are stable under eruption conditions as a result of their high Na contents.