Postdepositional injections of uranium-rich solutions into East Pacific Rise sediments

An 8.5 m long apparently undisturbed core from a hilltop on the crest of the East Pacific Rise has uranium and thorium isotope distributions that are very unusual. The core is very poor in ²³²Th, and very rich in U, particularly at the 500-cm level, where a value of about 150 ppm is reached. At the same depth the ²³⁰Th_xs reaches very large negative values. These facts could be accounted for if one assumes that solutions rich in U and poor in Th had been postdepositionally injected into the sediments about 90,000–110,000 years ago. The top of the sediment received much of its U from seawater, judging from the ${}^{234}\text{U}{}^{238}\text{U}$ ratio. Possibly carbonate rich solutions were the carriers of the injected uranium.