Earth's anomalous middle-age magmatism driven by plate slowdown.

Autor: O'Neill C; Department of Earth and Environmental Science, Macquarie Planetary Research Centre, Macquarie University, Sydney, 2109, Australia. thecraigoneill@gmail.com.; Origins Research Institute (ORI), Research Centre for Astronomy and Earth Sciences, 15-17 Konkoly Thege Miklós Road, Budapest, 1121, Hungary. thecraigoneill@gmail.com., Brown M; Laboratory for Crustal Petrology, Department of Geology, University of Maryland, College Park, MD, 20742-4211, USA., Schaefer B; Department of Earth and Environmental Science, Macquarie Planetary Research Centre, Macquarie University, Sydney, 2109, Australia., Gazi JA; Department of Earth and Environmental Science, Macquarie Planetary Research Centre, Macquarie University, Sydney, 2109, Australia.
Jazyk: angličtina
Zdroj: Scientific reports [Sci Rep] 2022 Jun 21; Vol. 12 (1), pp. 10460. Date of Electronic Publication: 2022 Jun 21.
DOI: 10.1038/s41598-022-13885-9
Abstrakt: The mid-Proterozoic or "boring billion" exhibited extremely stable environmental conditions, with little change in atmospheric oxygen levels, and mildly oxygenated shallow oceans. A limited number of passive margins with extremely long lifespans are observed from this time, suggesting that subdued tectonic activity-a plate slowdown-was the underlying reason for the environmental stability. However, the Proterozoic also has a unique magmatic and metamorphic record; massif-type anorthosites and anorogenic Rapakivi granites are largely confined to this period and the temperature/pressure (thermobaric ratio) of granulite facies metamorphism peaked at over 1500 °C/GPa during the Mesoproterozoic. Here, we develop a method of calculating plate velocities from the passive margin record, benchmarked against Phanerozoic tectonic velocities. We then extend this approach to geological observations from the Proterozoic, and provide the first quantitative constraints on Proterozoic plate velocities that substantiate the postulated slowdown. Using mantle evolution models, we calculate the consequences of this slowdown for mantle temperatures, magmatic regimes and metamorphic conditions in the crust. We show that higher mantle temperatures in the Proterozoic would have resulted in a larger proportion of intrusive magmatism, with mantle-derived melts emplaced at the Moho or into the lower crust, enabling the production of anorthosites and Rapakivi granites, and giving rise to extreme thermobaric ratios of crustal metamorphism when plate velocities were slowest.
(© 2022. The Author(s).)
Databáze: MEDLINE
Externí odkaz:
Nepřihlášeným uživatelům se plný text nezobrazuje