Abstract
Xenon plays a crucial role in models of atmospheric evolution in which noble gases are fractionated from their initial compositions to isotopically heavier distributions by early hydro-dynamic escape of primordial planetary atmospheres. With the assumption that nonradiogenic Xe isotope ratios in present-day atmospheres were generated in this way, backward modeling from these ratios through the fractionating process can in principle identify likely parental Xe compositions and thus the probable sources of noble gases in pre-escape atmospheres. Applied to Earth, this approach simultaneously establishes the presence of an atmospheric Xe component due principally to fission of extinct 244Pu and identifies a composition called U-Xe as primordial Xe. Pu-Xe comprises 4.65±0.30% of atmospheric 136Xe, and 6.8±0.5% of the present abundance of 129Xe derives from decay of extinct 129I. U-Xe is identical to the measured composition of solar-wind Xe except for deficits of the two heaviest isotopes — an unexpected difference since the modeling otherwise points to solar wind compositions for the lighter noble gases in the primordial terrestrial atmosphere. Evidence for the presence of U-Xe is not restricted to the early Earth; modeling based on a purely meteoritic data set defines a parental component in chondrites and achondrites with the same isotopic distribution. Results of experimental efforts to measure this composition directly in meteorites are promising but not yet conclusive. U-Xe also appears as a possible base component in interstellar silicon carbide, here with superimposed excesses of 134Xe and 136Xe six-fold larger than those in the solar wind. These compositional differences imply mixing of U-Xe with a nucleogenetic heavy-isotope component whose relative abundance in the solar accretion disk and in pre-solar environments varied both spatially and temporally.
In contrast to Earth, the U-Xe signature on Mars was apparently overwhelmed by local accretion of materials rich in either chondritic Xe or solar-wind Xe. Data currently in hand from SNC meteorites on the composition of the present atmosphere are insufficiently precise to constrain a modeling choice between these two candidates for primordial martian Xe. They likewise do not permit definitive resolution of a 244Pu component in the atmosphere although its presence is allowed within current measurement uncertainties.
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Pepin, R.O. (2000). On the Isotopic Composition of Primordial Xenon in Terrestrial Planet Atmospheres. In: Benz, W., Kallenbach, R., Lugmair, G.W. (eds) From Dust to Terrestrial Planets. Space Sciences Series of ISSI, vol 9. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-011-4146-8_24
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