Provenance and distribution of zinc in terrestrial planets
File(s)
Published version
Author(s)
Martins, Rayssa
Morton, Elin M
Huang, Yihang
Williams, Helen M
Rehkämper, Mark
Type
Journal Article
Abstract
The nucleosynthetic Zn isotope compositions of planetary materials shed light on the sources of Zn and other similarly volatile elements during terrestrial planet formation. Previous results for Earth revealed that it acquired its Zn inventory primarily from primitive, undifferentiated bodies originating from both the inner and outer Solar System. To further investigate this, we obtained new nucleosynthetic Zn isotope data for six Martian meteorites and five Lunar samples. Our Martian data are consistent with previous findings which show that, despite being more volatile-rich than Earth, Mars’s Zn was derived almost entirely from inner Solar System sources. We incorporated these results into a comprehensive mixing model, including eight additional isotope systems and major element abundances. The model suggests that Mars accreted ~ 50% of its mass from primitive chondritic material that delivered ~ 90% of its Zn, while the remainder came from volatile-poor, differentiated bodies. This mirrors previous findings for Earth, where ~ 90% of Zn was delivered by primitive material, despite contributing only ~ 30% of Earth’s total mass. Together, these results imply that the volatile inventories of terrestrial planets depend more on the nature (primitive versus differentiated) than the origin (inner versus outer Solar System) of their building blocks. Finally, the nucleosynthetic Zn isotope compositions of five Lunar samples are indistinguishable, within uncertainty, from those of the bulk silicate Earth and non-carbonaceous meteorites. Further analyses are thus needed to more robustly constrain the origin of Lunar Zn.
Date Issued
2025-11-18
Date Acceptance
2025-10-13
Citation
Scientific Reports, 2025, 15
ISSN
2045-2322
Publisher
Nature Portfolio
Journal / Book Title
Scientific Reports
Volume
15
Copyright Statement
© The Author(s) 2025 Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.
License URL
Identifier
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/41254017
PII: 10.1038/s41598-025-24419-4
Publication Status
Published
Coverage Spatial
England
Article Number
40546
Date Publish Online
2025-11-18