Chondritic mercury isotopic composition of Earth and evidence for evaporative equilibrium degassing during the formation of eucritesOPEN ACCESS 

Frédéric Moynier, Jiubin Chen, Ke Zhang, Hongming Cai, Zaicong Wang, Matthew G. Jackson, James M. D. Day

Earth and Planetary Science Letters
Volume 551, 1 December 2020, 116544

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“Highlights

• Hg isotopic composition of terrestrial igneous rocks and chondrites overlaps.
• This shows that Earth’s Hg may have been be dominated by late accretion.
• Hg isotopic composition of eucrite meteorites reflects evaporation under equilibrium.”

“Variations in the abundances of moderately volatile elements (MVE) are one of the most fundamental geochemical differences between the terrestrial planets. Whether these variations are the consequence of nebular processes, planetary volatilization, differentiation or late accretion is still unresolved. … “