Comment on 'Chondritic-like xenon trapped in Archean rocks: A possible signature of the ancient atmosphere' by M. Pujol, B. Marty, R. Burgess [Earth Planet. Sci. Lett. 308 (2011) 298-306]

摘要

Pujol etal.(2011) recently published results of a challenging and experimentally impressive study of noble gases trapped within fluid inclusionsin ≥3 Ga-old quartz precipitated from hydrothermal fluids, sampled at the North Pole locality of the Dresser Formation in Western Australia. Xenon isotopic compositions were measured mass spectrometrically at levels as low as ~10~6 atoms/g. The Xe data point to the presence of excess ~(130)Xe from double electron capture decay of ~(130)Ba and a fission component at ~(131–136)Xepresumablygeneratedbyspontaneous fission of ~(238)U.