Journal
SCIENCE
Volume 350, Issue 6262, Pages 795-797Publisher
AMER ASSOC ADVANCEMENT SCIENCE
DOI: 10.1126/science.aac4834
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- National Aeronautics and Space Administration through NASA Astrobiology Institute through the Office of Space Science [NNA09-DA77A]
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The hydrogen-isotope [deuterium/hydrogen (D/H)] ratio of Earth can be used to constrain the origin of its water. However, the most accessible reservoir, Earth's oceans, may no longer represent the original (primordial) D/H ratio, owing to changes caused by water cycling between the surface and the interior. Thus, a reservoir completely isolated from surface processes is required to define Earth's original D/H signature. Here we present data for Baffin Island and Icelandic lavas, which suggest that the deep mantle has a low D/H ratio (delta D more negative than -218 per mil). Such strongly negative values indicate the existence of a component within Earth's interior that inherited its D/H ratio directly from the protosolar nebula.
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