Definition
The term late veneer refers to the late accretion of asteroidal or cometary material to terrestrial planets. Iron and nickel segregation during core formation leaves the mantle of the planets depleted in siderophile elements, notably platinum-group elements. The modern abundances of these elements in the terrestrial mantle greatly exceed the level expected from such a wholesale removal of metal. It is therefore surmised that 0.5–1.5% of chondritic or cometary material was brought to the planet by the late veneer after core formation (Dauphas and Marty 2002; Maier et al. 2009). This hypothesis is germane to the issue of water delivery to the Earth.
History
Ringwood (1966) pointed out that the abundances of siderophile elements such as Ni, Co, Pt, Os in the upper mantle are remarkably higher than the values indicated by low-pressure partitioning experiments of these elements between metal and silicate phases. Chou (1978) suggested that about one percent of material resembling c...
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References and Further Reading
Albarède F (2009) Volatile accretion history of the terrestrial planets and dynamic implications. Nature 461:1227–1233
Chou CL (1978) Fractionation of siderophile elements in the Earth’s upper mantle. Proc Lunar Planet Sci Conf 9:219–230
Dauphas N, Marty B (2002) Inference on the nature and the mass of Earth’s late veneer from noble metals and gases. J Geophys Res-Planets 107: doi:10.1029/2001JE001617
Drake M, Righter K (2002) Determining the composition of the Earth. Nature 416:39–44
Gomes R, Levison HF, Tsiganis K, Morbidelli A (2005) Origin of the cataclysmic Late Heavy Bombardment period of the terrestrial planets. Nature 435:466–469
Holzheid A et al (2000) Evidence for a late chondritic veneer in the Earth’s mantle from high-pressure partitioning of palladium and platinum. Nature 406:396–399
Li J, Agee CB (1996) Geochemistry of mantle-core differentiation at high pressure. Nature 381:686–689
Maier WD, Barnes SJ, Campbell IH, Fiorentini ML, Peltonen P, Barnes S-J, Smithies RH (2009) Progressive mixing of meteoritic veneer into the early Earth’s deep mantle. Nature 460:620–623
Morbidelli et al (2000) Source regions and time scales for the delivery of water to the Earth. Meteorit Planet Sci 35:1309–1320
Owen T, Bar-Nun A (1995) Comets, impacts, and atmospheres. Icarus 116:215–226
Ringwood AE (1966) The chemical composition and origin of the earth. In: Hurley PM (ed) Advances in earth sciences. The M.I.T. Press, Cambridge, pp 287–356
Wade J, Wood BJ (2005) Core formation and the oxidation state of the Earth. Earth Planet Sci Lett 236:78–95
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Albarède, F. (2011). Late Veneer. In: Gargaud, M., et al. Encyclopedia of Astrobiology. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-11274-4_870
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