Project description
Exploring Earth's mafic crustal growth using chromite analysis
Current understanding of Earth's crustal growth relies heavily on zircon analysis, primarily revealing felsic crustal growth while overlooking early Earth's mafic crust. The ERC-funded project ChroMCrust aims to deepen knowledge of Earth's mafic crustal development, essential for studying tectonic evolution and early continent formation. Moving beyond zircon, this study analyses detrital chromite in Archaean Craton sedimentary rocks. Chromite’s chemical properties and Re-Os isotope dating will help identify the origins and ages of mafic terranes. Key goals include developing chromite analysis techniques for ancient rocks, constructing a mafic-ultramafic growth timeline for an Archaean continental nucleus, and seeking Earth's earliest mafic crust. This novel approach will broaden our knowledge of sedimentary provenance, uncover mafic crustal development, and provide new insights into Earth's primitive crust.
Objective
Understanding Earth's crustal growth is crucial to understanding the evolution of its tectonics, the birth of the first continents, and the fundamental changes that transformed Earth into a habitable planet. However, much of our understanding of Earth's crustal growth is predicated on a single mineral - zircon - that is strongly biased towards detecting felsic crustal growth. This is particularly problematic for the early Earth, where average crustal compositions were far more mafic than today, and the very first protocrust may be entirely undetectable using conventional methods. I propose to access the mafic to ultramafic crustal growth record using detrital chromite preserved in sedimentary rocks from Archaean Cratons. Like zircon, chromite chemical compositions reflect the magmas that they crystallised from, and can be used to identify the provenance of the mafic portions of a sedimentary rock. Furthermore, they can be dated using Re-Os isotopes, to identify the age of eroded mafic terranes. This project has three main objectives:
1. Develop techniques to identify the age and composition of chromite sources in ancient sedimentary rocks.
2. Use a range of detrital chromite samples from sedimentary sequences in the Superior Craton, to reconstruct a mafic-ultramafic crustal growth curve for the craton.
3. Search for evidence of Earth's mafic protocrust in some of the oldest known chromite-bearing sedimentary rocks.
These achievements will open a new avenue for studying sedimentary provenance, unlock the archive of mafic crustal growth throughout Earth history, and provide insights on the nature and survival of Earth's earliest crust. The techniques developed will be broadly applicable, paving the way for a better understanding of Earth's crustal evolution.
Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
This project's classification has been validated by the project's team.
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
This project's classification has been validated by the project's team.
Keywords
Project’s keywords as indicated by the project coordinator. Not to be confused with the EuroSciVoc taxonomy (Fields of science)
Project’s keywords as indicated by the project coordinator. Not to be confused with the EuroSciVoc taxonomy (Fields of science)
Programme(s)
Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
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HORIZON.1.1 - European Research Council (ERC)
MAIN PROGRAMME
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Topic(s)
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Calls for proposals are divided into topics. A topic defines a specific subject or area for which applicants can submit proposals. The description of a topic comprises its specific scope and the expected impact of the funded project.
Funding Scheme
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Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.
HORIZON-ERC - HORIZON ERC Grants
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Call for proposal
Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.
Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.
(opens in new window) ERC-2023-STG
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Net EU financial contribution. The sum of money that the participant receives, deducted by the EU contribution to its linked third party. It considers the distribution of the EU financial contribution between direct beneficiaries of the project and other types of participants, like third-party participants.
1165 KOBENHAVN
Denmark
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