A nucleosynthetic origin for the Earth's anomalous (142)Nd composition.

A long-standing paradigm assumes that the chemical and isotopic compositions of many elements in the bulk silicate Earth are the same as in chondrites. However, the accessible Earth has a greater (142)Nd/(144)Nd ratio than do chondrites. Because (142)Nd is the decay product of the now-extinct (146)Sm (which has a half-life of 103 million years), this (142)Nd difference seems to require a higher-than-chondritic Sm/Nd ratio for the accessible Earth. This must have been acquired during global silicate differentiation within the first 30 million years of Solar System formation and implies the formation of a complementary (142)Nd-depleted reservoir that either is hidden in the deep Earth, or lost to space by impact erosion. Whether this complementary reservoir existed, and whether or not it has been lost from Earth, is a matter of debate, and has implications for determining the bulk composition of Earth, its heat content and structure, as well as for constraining the modes and timescales of its geodynamical evolution. Here we show that, compared with chondrites, Earth's precursor bodies were enriched in neodymium that was produced by the slow neutron capture process (s-process) of nucleosynthesis. This s-process excess leads to higher (142)Nd/(144)Nd ratios; after correction for this effect, the (142)Nd/(144)Nd ratios of chondrites and the accessible Earth are indistinguishable within five parts per million. The (142)Nd offset between the accessible silicate Earth and chondrites therefore reflects a higher proportion of s-process neodymium in the Earth, and not early differentiation processes. As such, our results obviate the need for hidden-reservoir or super-chondritic Earth models and imply a chondritic Sm/Nd ratio for the bulk Earth. Although chondrites formed at greater heliocentric distances and contain a different mix of presolar components than Earth, they nevertheless are suitable proxies for Earth's bulk chemical composition.

238U/235U variations in meteorites: extant 247Cm and implications for Pb-Pb dating.

The 238U/235U isotope ratio has long been considered invariant in meteoritic materials (equal to 137.88). This assumption is a cornerstone of the high-precision lead-lead dates that define the absolute age of the solar system. Calcium-aluminum-rich inclusions (CAIs) of the Allende meteorite display variable 238U/235U ratios, ranging between 137.409 +/- 0.039 and 137.885 +/- 0.009. This range implies substantial uncertainties in the ages that were previously determined by lead-lead dating of CAIs, which may be overestimated by several million years. The correlation of uranium isotope ratios with proxies for curium/uranium (that is, thorium/uranium and neodymium/uranium) provides strong evidence that the observed variations of 238U/235U in CAIs were produced by the decay of extant curium-247 to uranium-235 in the early solar system, with an initial 247Cm/235U ratio of approximately 1.1 x 10(-4) to 2.4 x 10(-4).