Archaean tectonic processes: a case for horizontal shortening in the North Pilbara Granite-Greenstone Terrane, Western Australia

Abstract

The Archaean Pilbara granitoid-greenstone terrane (GGT) has been the focus of numerous studies on Archaean geology, especially the classic dome-and-basin area around Marble Bar in the east Pilbara. This area has been used as evidence for different tectonic processes, i.e. that vertical tectonics or diapirism was a cause for Archaean deformation. This paper provides evidence to support regional horizontal (plate-interaction) stresses as being largely responsible for the compressive deformation of the Pilbara GGT, at least from ca. 3.2 Ga. The relative chronology of meso-to macro-scale structural elements are presented for a number of selected areas across the Pilbara GGT. These locally identified events are correlated with a regional (Pilbara-wide) structural framework of deformation events that are constrained by geochronological and stratigraphic controls. The dome-and-basin geometry characteristic of the east Pilbara was established after 3.2 Ga, and was successively modified by repeated orthogonal extensional and compressive (subhorizontal) events. The result has been a locally complex development of polyphase structural elements with consistent overprinting relationships that can be correlated across much of the Pilbara from 3.2 Ga. Diapirism did not cause these deformation elements, although it may have modified them.