Zircon U[sbnd]Pb geochronology and geochemistry of hot subduction volcanic suite in the deep bore-hole well-core KBH-5: Evidence of Neoarchean Shimoga greenstone belt beneath the Cretaceous Deccan Traps, India

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The continents across Earth have grown through accretion and amalgamation of plume-generated oceanic plateaux and subduction-originated magmatic arcs. The evidence of such evolutionary processes is well preserved in the greenstone belts of Canada, South Africa, China, Australia and India. Unlike accretion that leads to lateral growth of the continents, flood basalt volcanism results in the superposition of large volumes of dense mafic material above relatively less dense sialic upper continental crust. The resulting density inversion is liable to generate tectonic stresses resulting in faulting of under burden along weak planes. The nature of the crust obscured beneath flood basalt provinces that have accumulated over the past 500 My in Large Igneous Provinces (LIPs) has remained enigmatic, largely because of the voluminous lava pile that deters access to the concealed basement, unless otherwise retrieved through deep continental drilling. Here, we present in situ zircon UPb geochronology and bulk-rock geochemistry of a volcanic sequence discovered at −400 m m.s.l in the deep bore-hole well-core KBH-5 of the southwestern Deccan Traps, India. The ∼300 m thick metavolcanic succession includes a basalt – Nb-enriched basalt – andesite – Mg-andesite – dacite – adakite suite. The zircons yielded a 2.58 Ga U-Pb age for the suite, which also incorporates entrained zircon xenocrysts of 2.7 Ga age from a preexisting juvenile material during its emplacement. The bore-hole KBH-5 is located on an NNW-SSE trending normal fault, paralleling a series of major faults west of the Western Ghat Escarpment. Although the crustal block plummeted ∼1000 m downward along the fault plane, the geochemical attributes of the metavolcanic rocks are thoroughly comparable to those reported in the Medur Formation of the Shimoga greenstone belt, ∼300 km south of KBH-5 in the western Dharwar craton. Our study provides the first physical evidence of Dharwar greenstone belt(s) extending further beneath the Deccan Traps, which was previously only speculative based on short-wavelength gravity highs. The metavolcanic sequence evolved in a subduction-related back-arc tectonic regime and accreted to the active continental margin of India in the Neoarchean. Unveiling of potentially similar scenarios in cratons elsewhere entrapped beneath the vast canopy of continental flood basalts, would reveal new crustal growth events during the Archean -Proterozoic transition across the Earth.