Stored mafic/ultramafic crust and early Archean mantle depletion

Both early and late Archean rocks from greenstone belts and felsic gneiss complexes exhibit positive ε_Nd values of +1 to +5 by 3.5 Ga, demonstrating that a depleted mantle reservoir existed very early. The amount of preserved pre-3.0 Ga continental crust cannot explain such high ε values in the depleted residue unless the volume of residual mantle was very small: a layer less than 70 km thick by 3.0 Ga. Repeated and exclusive sampling of such a thin layer, especially in forming the felsic gneiss complexes, is implausible. Extraction of enough continental crust to deplete the early mantle and its destructive recycling before 3.0 Ga ago requires another implausibility, that the sites of crustal generation and of recycling were substantially distinct. In contrast, formation of mafic or ultramafic crust analogous to present-day oceanic crust was continuous from very early times. Recycled subducted oceanic lithosphere is a likely contributor to present-day hotspot magmas, and forms a reservoir at least comparable in volume to continental crust. Subduction of an early mafic/ultramafic “oceanic” crust and temporary storage rather than immediate mixing back into undifferentiated mantle may be responsible for the depletion and high ε_Nd values of the Archean upper mantle. Using oceanic crustal production proportional to heat productivity, we show that temporary storage in the mantle of that crust, whether basaltic as formed by 5–20% partial melting, or partly komatiitic and formed by higher extents of melting is sufficient to balance an early depleted mantle of significant volume with ε_Nd at least +3.0.