Deep vs. shallow expressions of continental cratons: Can cratonic roots be destroyed by subduction?
Abstract
Cratons are parts of continents that have remained tectonically quiescent over billion-year timescales. Although cratonic lithosphere has the stabilizing properties of chemical buoyancy and high viscosity, it can still be destroyed. The best known example of a missing cratonic root is beneath the eastern North China Craton (NCC). Despite strong evidence for the past existence of a craton in northern China, high heat flow, Mesozoic basin formation, extensive seismicity, and the lack of a fast seismic root imply that the deep cratonic lithosphere is missing. The mechanism for the lithospheric root loss is a source of much debate. Many mechanisms have been proposed, among them: shearing of the lithospheric root by asthenospheric flow induced by the Indo-Eurasian collision; ponding of the Pacific slab in the transition zone acting as a source of fluids that enable hydrous weakening; and thermal erosion due to the corner-flow upwelling of hot, deep material. It is generally agreed that the influence of subduction is key, both from the temporal coincidence of subduction with increased tectonomagmatic activity on the craton and from the spatial correlation of lithospheric loss adjacent to the Pacific trench. We investigate how cratons extend to depth through comparison between seismic signatures of the cratonic lithosphere in the upper mantle and surficial evidence of cratonic boundaries. We examine global and regional tomography, as well as receiver-function constraints on lithospheric thickness in the NCC. We define craton boundaries at the surface through analyses on crust and lithospheric mantle ages and kimberlite locations. We aim to identify regions where the fast cratonic root has been lost or altered beneath Archean and Proterozoic crust and in particular place constraints on the extent of the remaining cratonic root beneath North China. Given the common emphasis on the role of subduction as a driving force for the root loss beneath the eastern NCC, we focus on subduction-related mechanisms for the destabilization of a continental craton located on the overriding plate. We use the finite-element code CitcomCU to model thermo-mechanical subduction in the presence of a craton. Subduction is dynamically-driven, and the two lithospheric plates are decoupled by a thin weak crust, along which shear is localized. For NCC-type craton geometries, we examine how, and under what rheological parameterizations, the following mechanisms can destabilize a cratonic root: (i) thermal erosion due to the corner flow-driven upwelling of hot asthenosphere; (ii) viscosity reduction due to the hydrolytic weakening of olivine; (iii) collision-induced stress triggered weakening (for non-Newtonian rheologies). Additionally, we examine how various craton geometries and rheological formulations influence the development of a flat slab.
- Publication:
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AGU Fall Meeting Abstracts
- Pub Date:
- December 2013
- Bibcode:
- 2013AGUFM.T22A..06P
- Keywords:
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- 8103 TECTONOPHYSICS Continental cratons;
- 7205 SEISMOLOGY Continental crust;
- 8120 TECTONOPHYSICS Dynamics of lithosphere and mantle: general;
- 8170 TECTONOPHYSICS Subduction zone processes