RESUMO
Helium isotopes provide an important tool for tracing early-Earth, primordial reservoirs that have survived in the planet's interior. Volcanic hotspot lavas, like those erupted at Hawaii and Iceland, can host rare, high 3He/4He isotopic ratios (up to 50 times the present atmospheric ratio, Ra) compared to the lower 3He/4He ratios identified in mid-ocean-ridge basalts that form by melting the upper mantle (about 8Ra; ref. 5). A long-standing hypothesis maintains that the high-3He/4He domain resides in the deep mantle, beneath the upper mantle sampled by mid-ocean-ridge basalts, and that buoyantly upwelling plumes from the deep mantle transport high-3He/4He material to the shallow mantle beneath plume-fed hotspots. One problem with this hypothesis is that, while some hotspots have 3He/4He values ranging from low to high, other hotspots exhibit only low 3He/4He ratios. Here we show that, among hotspots suggested to overlie mantle plumes, those with the highest maximum 3He/4He ratios have high hotspot buoyancy fluxes and overlie regions with seismic low-velocity anomalies in the upper mantle, unlike plume-fed hotspots with only low maximum 3He/4He ratios. We interpret the relationships between 3He/4He values, hotspot buoyancy flux, and upper-mantle shear wave velocity to mean that hot plumes-which exhibit seismic low-velocity anomalies at depths of 200 kilometres-are more buoyant and entrain both high-3He/4He and low-3He/4He material. In contrast, cooler, less buoyant plumes do not entrain this high-3He/4He material. This can be explained if the high-3He/4He domain is denser than low-3He/4He mantle components hosted in plumes, and if high-3He/4He material is entrained from the deep mantle only by the hottest, most buoyant plumes. Such a dense, deep-mantle high-3He/4He domain could remain isolated from the convecting mantle, which may help to explain the preservation of early Hadean (>4.5 billion years ago) geochemical anomalies in lavas sampling this reservoir.
RESUMO
Hotspot lavas erupted at ocean islands exhibit tremendous isotopic variability, indicating that there are numerous mantle components hosted in upwelling mantle plumes that generate volcanism at hotspots like Hawaii and Samoa. However, it is not known how the surface expression of the various geochemical components observed in hotspot volcanoes relates to their spatial distribution within the plume. Here we present a relationship between He and Pb isotopes in Samoan lavas that places severe constraints on the distribution of geochemical species within the plume. The Pb-isotopic compositions of the Samoan lavas reveal several distinct geochemical groups, each corresponding to a different geographic lineament of volcanoes. Each group has a signature associated with one of four mantle endmembers with low (3)He/(4)He: EMII (enriched mantle 2), EMI (enriched mantle 1), HIMU (high µ = (238)U/(204)Pb) and DM (depleted mantle). Critically, these four geochemical groups trend towards a common region of Pb-isotopic space with high (3)He/(4)He. This observation is consistent with several low-(3)He/(4)He components in the plume mixing with a common high-(3)He/(4)He component, but not mixing much with each other. The mixing relationships inferred from the new He and Pb isotopic data provide the clearest picture yet of the geochemical geometry of a mantle plume, and are best explained by a high-(3)He/(4)He plume matrix that hosts, and mixes with, several distinct low-(3)He/(4)He components.