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Crustal influence in the generation of continental flood basalts

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Abstract

The suggestion that primordial undifferentiated material may exist in the Earth's mantle has recently been revived on the strength of Nd isotope data for two types of young continental rocks—flood basalts1 and kimberlites2. The limited published data show a clustering of Nd isotopic compositions close to those for meteorites with chondritic relative rare-earth (REE) abundance. In contrast, we now present data for samples from the Columbia flood basalt province of the northwestern United States which show large isotopic variability suggestive of mixing processes acting after the separation of the primary magmas from their mantle source.

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Author notes

  1. R. W. Carlson

    Present address: Department of Terrestrial Magnetism, 5241 Broad Branch Road, NW Washington, DC, 20015

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Scripps Institution of Oceanography A-020, University of California, San Diego, La Jolla, California, 92093

    R. W. Carlson, G. W. Lugmair & J. D. Macdougall

Authors
  1. R. W. Carlson
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  2. G. W. Lugmair
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  3. J. D. Macdougall
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Carlson, R., Lugmair, G. & Macdougall, J. Crustal influence in the generation of continental flood basalts. Nature 289, 160–162 (1981). https://doi.org/10.1038/289160a0

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/289160a0

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