Abstract
I REPORT here some radiogenic 4He and 40Ar data measured in the glass margins of deep sea pillow basalts, and comment on their applicability to discussions of formation of the Earth's atmosphere by degassing from a solid Earth. Discussions of such degassing generally assume either catastrophic or continuous degassing (see refs 1, 2 and references therein). In fact, there is no reason why these two sets of models should be considered to be mutually exclusive. The history of the Earth may include both a catastrophic event with an associated ‘big burp’, and later continuous degassing.
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FISHER, D. Trapped helium and argon and the formation of the atmosphere by degassing. Nature 256, 113–114 (1975). https://doi.org/10.1038/256113b0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/256113b0
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