Continental crust-mantle interaction

McBride J. S., Lambert D. D., Nicholls I. A., and Price R. C. (2001) Osmium isotopic evidence for crust—mantle interaction in the genesis of continental intraplate basalts from the Newer Volcanic Province southeastern Australia. J. Petrol. 42, 1197-1218. 

Earth system is composed of subsystems such as atmosphere, hydrosphere, lithosphere (geosphere), biosphere and humans. Each subsystem can be divided into several parts. Eor example, geosphere includes crust (oceanic crust and continental crust), mantle (upper mantle and lower mantle) and core (outer core and inner core). Here, each part which constitutes subsystem is called reservoir. Each reservoir interacts chemically and physically with each other. Two aspects of interaction are heat and mass transfer. 

A distinct class of models that describe the chemical evolution of the Earth are the so-called box models, in which assumptions are made about the geometry of distinct reservoirs and their interactions. For example, one can assign four distinct reservoirs in the upper mantle, lower mantle, continental crust, and atmosphere and develop differential equations that incorporate radiogenic ingrowth, chemical fractionation effects, and assumptions about mass transfer between the reservoirs. Successful models reproduce the observed isotopic ratios and/or... 

Zhou X. H., Sun M., Zhang G. H., and Chen S. H. (2002) Continental crust and lithospheric mantle interaction beneath North China isotopic evidence from granulite xenoliths in Hannuoba, Sino-Korean craton. Lithos 62(3-4), 111-124. 

---