Heterogeneities subducted ocean crust

Crust-mantle chemical mass-balance models offer important constraints on compositional variations in the mantle, but their constraints on the size of the various reservoirs involved depend critically on uncertainties in the estimates of the bulk composition of the continental crust, the degree of depletion of the complementary depleted mantle, and the existence of enriched reservoirs in Earth s interior, for example, possibly significant volumes of subducted oceanic crust. This last item was left out of the mass-balance models that suggested that the upper and lower mantle are chemically distinct. Chapter 2.03 makes it clear that much of the chemical and isotopic heterogeneity observed in oceanic volcanic rocks reflects various mixtures of depleted mantle with different types of recycled subducted crust. With this realization, and excepting the noble gas evidence for undegassed mantle, some of the characteristics of what was once labeled... 

Since hthium and boron isotope fractionations mainly occur during low temperature processes, Li and B isotopes may provide a robust tracer of surface material that is recycled to the mantle (Elhott et al. 2004). Heterogeneous distribution of subducted oceanic and continental crust in the mantle will thus result in variations in Li and B isotope ratios. Furthermore, dehydration processes active in subducdon zones appear to be of crucial importance in the control of Li and B isotope composition of different parts of the mantle. For the upper mantle as a whole Jeffcoate et al. (2007) gave an estimated 8 Li-value of 3.5%o. 

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