Archean greenstone-tonalite duality: Thermochemical mantle convection models or plate tectonics in the early Earth global dynamics?

Abstract

Mantle convection and plate tectonics are one system, because oceanic plates are cold upper thermal boundary layers of the convection cells. As a corollary, Phanerozoic-style of plate tectonics or more likely a different version of it (i.e. a larger number of slowly moving plates, or similar number of faster plates) is expected to have operated in the hotter, vigorously convecting early Earth. Despite the recent advances in understanding the origin of Archean greenstone–granitoid terranes, the question regarding the operation of plate tectonics in the early Earth remains still controversial. Numerical model outputs for the Archean Earth range from predominantly shallow to flat subduction between 4.0 and 2.5 Ga and well-established steep subduction since 2.5 Ga [Abbott, D., Drury, R., Smith, W.H.F., 1994. Flat to steep transition in subduction style. Geology 22, 937–940], to no plate tectonics but rather foundering of 1000 km sectors of basaltic crust, then “resurfaced” by upper asthenospheric mantle basaltic melts that generate the observed duality of basalts and tonalities [van Thienen, P., van den Berg, A.P., Vlaar, N.J., 2004a. Production and recycling of oceanic crust in the early earth. Tectonophysics 386, 41–65; van Thienen, P., Van den Berg, A.P., Vlaar, N.J., 2004b. On the formation of continental silicic melts in thermochemical mantle convection models: implications for early Earth. Tectonophysics 394, 111–124]. These model outputs can be tested against the geological record. Greenstone belt volcanics are composites of komatiite–basalt plateau sequences erupted from deep mantle plumes and bimodal basalt–dacite sequences having the geochemical signatures of convergent margins; i.e. horizontally imbricated plateau and island arc crust. Greenstone belts from 3.8 to 2.5 Ga include volcanic types reported from Cenozoic convergent margins including: boninites; arc picrites; and the association of adakites–Mg andesites- and Nb-enriched basalts. Archean cratons were intruded by voluminous norites from the Neoarchean through Proterozoic; norites are accounted for by melting of subduction metasomatized Archean continental lithospheric mantle (CLM). Deep CLM defines Archean cratons; it extends to ∼ 350 km, includes the diamond facies, and xenoliths signify a composition of the buoyant, refractory, residue of plume melting, a natural consequence of imbricated plateau-arc crust. Voluminous tonalites of Archean greenstone–granitoid terranes show a secular trend of increasing Mg#, Cr, Ni consistent with slab melts hybridizing with thicker mantle wedge as subduction angle steepens. Strike-slip faults of 1000 km scale; diachronous accretion of distinct tectonostratigraphic terranes; and broad Cordilleran-type orogens featuring multiple sutures, and oceanward migration of arcs, in the Archean Superior and Yilgarn cratons, are in common with the Altaid and Phanerozoic Cordilleran orogens. There is increasing geological evidence of the supercontinent cycle operating back to ∼ 2.7 Ga: Kenorland or Ur ∼ 2.7–2.4 Ga; Columbia ∼ 1.6–1.4 Ga; Rodinia ∼ 1100–750 Ma; and Pangea ∼ 230 Ma. High-resolution seismic reflection profiling of Archean terranes reveals a prevalence of low angle structures, and evidence for paleo-subduction zones. Collectively, the geological–geochemical–seismic records endorse the operation of plate tectonics since the early Archean.