Secular cooling and crystallization of partially molten Archaean continental crust over 1 Ga

Abstract

The protracted tectonic and magmatic record of cratons over the Archaean Eon has been classically interpreted in terms of long-lived shallow-dipping subduction or repeated mantle plumes. In this paper, we use the 1D conductive heat equation to model the evolution of the geotherm of a generic felsic-dominated Archaean cratonic nuclei solely considering the secular decay of radioactive isotopes (238U, 235U, 232Th, and 40K), responsible for heat production in the crust. Using a range of plausible parameters for crustal thickness, lithospheric thickness, and surface heat flux, this modelling shows that Archaean crust was characterized by an initially high geothermal gradient at 3.5 Ga, with a Moho temperature close to 900 °C, and that it might have remained partially molten for about one billion years. The existence of a partially molten crust for an extended period of time offers an alternative option to shallow-dipping subduction or repeated mantle plumes for the understanding of the peculiar tectonic evolution of Archaean cratons marked by (i) protracted high-temperature metamorphism and magmatism associated with crustal differentiation, and (ii) widespread deformation characterized by structural domes attributed to the development of crustal-scale gravitational instabilities.