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Seismic reflections from a lithospheric suture zone below the Archaean Yilgarn Craton
- Source :
- Nature Communications, Vol 12, Iss 1, Pp 1-9 (2021), Nature Communications
- Publication Year :
- 2021
- Publisher :
- Nature Portfolio, 2021.
-
Abstract
- Seismic reflectors in the uppermost mantle, which can indicate past plate tectonic subduction, are exceedingly rare below Archaean cratons, and restricted to the Neoarchaean. Here we present reprocessed seismic reflection profiles from the northwest Archaean Yilgarn Craton and the Palaeoproterozoic Capricorn Orogen of western Australia that reveal the existence of a ~4 km thick south-dipping band of seismic reflectors that extends from the base of the Archaean crust to at least 60 km depth. We interpret these reflectors, which lie south of a ~50 km deep crustal root, as a relict suture zone within the lithosphere. We suggest that the mantle reflectors were created either by subduction of an oceanic plate along the northern edge of the Yilgarn Craton, which started in the Mesoarchaean and produced the rocks in northern Yilgarn greenstone belts that formed in a supra-subduction zone setting, or, alternatively, by underthrusting of continental crust deep into the lithosphere during the Palaeoproterozoic.<br />The timing and nature of the first plate tectonic processes on Earth is disputed. Here the authors present a seismic reflection image of a suture zone that extends to 60 km depth beneath the ancient Yilgarn region of western Australia, suggesting that plate subduction occurred as early as 2.8 billion years ago
- Subjects :
- Multidisciplinary
010504 meteorology & atmospheric sciences
Science
Tectonics
General Physics and Astronomy
General Chemistry
15. Life on land
010502 geochemistry & geophysics
01 natural sciences
Article
General Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology
Geophysics
13. Climate action
0105 earth and related environmental sciences
Subjects
Details
- Language :
- English
- ISSN :
- 20411723
- Volume :
- 12
- Issue :
- 1
- Database :
- OpenAIRE
- Journal :
- Nature Communications
- Accession number :
- edsair.doi.dedup.....77fbb78b41534e4fe11c8b18dd7514c8