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Thermal state and evolving geodynamic regimes of the Meso- to Neoarchean North China Craton

Sun, Guozheng; Liu, Shuwen; Cawood, Peter A.; Tang, Ming; van Hunen, Jeroen; Gao, Lei; Hu, Yalu; Hu, Fangyang

Thermal state and evolving geodynamic regimes of the Meso- to Neoarchean North China Craton Thumbnail


Authors

Guozheng Sun

Shuwen Liu

Peter A. Cawood

Ming Tang

Lei Gao

Yalu Hu

Fangyang Hu



Abstract

Constraining thickness and geothermal gradient of Archean continental crust are crucial to understanding geodynamic regimes of the early Earth. Archean crust-sourced tonalitic–trondhjemitic–granodioritic gneisses are ideal lithologies for reconstructing the thermal state of early continental crust. Integrating experimental results with petrochemical data from the Eastern Block of the North China Craton allows us to establish temporal–spatial variations in thickness, geothermal gradient and basal heat flow across the block, which we relate to cooling mantle potential temperature and resultant changing geodynamic regimes from vertical tectonics in the late Mesoarchean (~2.9 Ga) to plate tectonics with hot subduction in the early to late Neoarchean (~2.7–2.5 Ga). Here, we show the transition to a plate tectonic regime plays an important role in the rapid cooling of the mantle, and thickening and strengthening of the lithosphere, which in turn prompted stabilization of the cratonic lithosphere at the end of the Archean.

Citation

Sun, G., Liu, S., Cawood, P. A., Tang, M., van Hunen, J., Gao, L., …Hu, F. (2021). Thermal state and evolving geodynamic regimes of the Meso- to Neoarchean North China Craton. Nature Communications, 12(1), Article 3888. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-021-24139-z

Journal Article Type Article
Acceptance Date Jun 1, 2021
Online Publication Date Jun 23, 2021
Publication Date 2021
Deposit Date Jul 4, 2021
Publicly Available Date Aug 9, 2021
Journal Nature Communications
Publisher Nature Research
Peer Reviewed Peer Reviewed
Volume 12
Issue 1
Article Number 3888
DOI https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-021-24139-z

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Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.





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