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Archean Geodynamics: Ephemeral Supercontinents Or Long-Lived Supercratons Yebo Liu1*, Ross N

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Archean Geodynamics: Ephemeral Supercontinents Or Long-Lived Supercratons Yebo Liu1*, Ross N https://doi.org/10.1130/G48575.1 Manuscript received 1 November 2020 Revised manuscript received 9 January 2021 Manuscript accepted 13 January 2021 © 2021 The Authors. Gold Open Access: This paper is published under the terms of the CC-BY license. Published online 22 March 2021 Archean geodynamics: Ephemeral supercontinents or long-lived supercratons Yebo Liu1*, Ross N. Mitchell2,1, Zheng-Xiang Li1, Uwe Kirscher1,3, Sergei A. Pisarevsky1,4 and Chong Wang2,1,5 1 Earth Dynamics Research Group, The Institute for Geoscience Research (TIGeR), School of Earth and Planetary Sciences, Curtin University, Bentley, Western Australia 6102, Australia 2 State Key Laboratory of Lithospheric Evolution, Institute of Geology and Geophysics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100029, China 3 Department of Geosciences, University of Tübingen, Sigwartstrasse 10, 72076 Tübingen, Germany 4 Institute of the Earth’s Crust, Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Irkutsk 664033, Russia 5 Department of Geosciences and Geography, University of Helsinki, FI-00014 Helsinki, Finland ABSTRACT provide geometric constraints (radiating pat- Many Archean cratons exhibit Paleoproterozoic rifted margins, implying they were pieces terns) that can be dated precisely, with the pos- of some ancestral landmass(es). The idea that such an ancient continental assembly represents sibility of multiple intrusion events on several an Archean supercontinent has been proposed but remains to be justified. Starkly contrasting different cratons over time confirming a hypo- geological records between different clans of cratons have inspired an alternative hypothesis thetical configuration (Bleeker and Ernst, 2006). where cratons were clustered in multiple, separate “supercratons.” A new ca. 2.62 Ga paleo- The Superior craton is the largest Archean craton magnetic pole from the Yilgarn craton of Australia is compatible with either two successive and has one of the best-sampled and dated mag- but ephemeral supercontinents or two long-lived supercratons across the Archean-Proterozoic matic barcodes, thus providing, via magmatic transition. Neither interpretation supports the existence of a single, long-lived supercontinent, barcode matching, the “keystone” of the first suggesting that Archean geodynamics were fundamentally different from subsequent times hypothesized supercraton Superia (Bleeker and (Proterozoic to present), which were influenced largely by supercontinent cycles. Ernst, 2006; Ernst and Bleeker, 2010; Davey et al., 2020). Paleomagnetism can independently INTRODUCTION et al., 2021) was Earth’s first Pangea-sized test whether two cratons were (1) geographi- The Archean-Proterozoic transition was one supercontinent, or whether it had an Archean cally near or distant and (2) moved together or of the most dynamic periods in Earth history, predecessor. It has long been recognized that separately. So far, both methods have been used involving globally diachronous cratonization many Archean cratons are bounded by Paleo- to prove the existence of the “Superia” configu- (Bleeker, 2003; Laurent et al., 2014; Cawood proterozoic rift margins, which indicate that ration for several cratons originally contiguous et al., 2018), low-latitude glaciation (Evans some of the presently separated cratons once with the Superior craton (Bleeker et al., 2016; et al., 1997), and the Great Oxygenation Event belonged to larger Archean continental blocks Gumsley et al., 2017; Salminen et al., 2019). (Gumsley et al., 2017). Secular cooling of the prior to breakup (Williams et al., 1991; As- However, determining whether Superia includ- mantle also appears to have occurred faster at pler and Chiarenzelli, 1998; Bleeker, 2003). A ed all or most of the Archean cratons (i.e., ap- this time than during any other time in Earth single, large supercontinent, putatively named proaching an Archean supercontinent in size) history (Keller and Schoene, 2012). Paleogeog- “Kenorland” (Williams et al., 1991), represents remains elusive (Mitchell et al., 2014). raphy during the Archean-Proterozoic transition one end-member model for this ancestral land- is pertinent to the question of whether Archean mass (Salminen et al., 2019). As an alternative RESULTS geodynamics were similar to the post-Archean hypothesis, based mainly on diachronous cra- We report a high-quality paleomagnetic pole plate-tectonic regime, featuring the three largely tonization timings, several independent “super- for the recently identified 2615 ± 6 Ma Yandi- accepted supercontinent cycles (Bleeker, 2003; cratons” are proposed to have characterized the nilling dike swarm (Stark et al., 2018) of the Li et al., 2019), or markedly different in some late Archean tectonic regime (Bleeker, 2003). Yilgarn craton, Western Australia (Fig. 1). We form of small-scale mantle convection and/or Among the reconstruction methods used collected 123 standard cores from 15 individu- prototectonic regime. The first-order question for Precambrian paleogeography, two are com- al dikes for rock magnetic and paleomagnetic to answer is whether the Mesoproterozoic su- monly employed: magmatic barcode matching analysis (Fig. 1). Each site represents a distinct percontinent Nuna (Zhao et al., 2002; Kirscher (Bleeker, 2004; Bleeker and Ernst, 2006) and dike. Nearly all samples revealed well-defined paleomagnetism. Dike swarms are particularly demagnetization trajectories (Fig. 2A; Fig. S5 *E-mail: [email protected] useful geological piercing points because they in the Supplemental Material1). The least stable 1Supplemental Material. Supplemental text, six supplemental figures, and three supplemental tables providing further details for regional geology, methods, demagnetization data, rock magnetic results, poles used for paleogeography reconstructions and Euler poles for reproducing the models. Please visit https://doi .org/10.1130/GEOL.S.14150075 to access the supplemental material, and contact [email protected] with any questions. CITATION: Liu, Y., et al., 2021, Archean geodynamics: Ephemeral supercontinents or long-lived supercratons: Geology, v. 49, p. 794–798, https://doi.org/10.1130/ G48575.1 794 www.gsapubs.org | Volume 49 | Number 7 | GEOLOGY | Geological Society of America Downloaded from http://pubs.geoscienceworld.org/gsa/geology/article-pdf/49/7/794/5335893/g48575.1.pdf by guest on 25 September 2021 115°30' E 116°0'E 116°30'E 117°0'E 117°30'E 1210 Ma Marnda Moorn 15 31°30'S Dike Swarm 30 31 1390 Ma Biberkine 29 32 14 Dikes Swarm 33 1888 Ma Boonadgin Indian Ocean 34 35 Dike Swarm York 36 16 38 2410 Ma Widgiemooltha Perth 17 37 Dike Swarm 32°0'S 2615 Ma Yandinilling Dike Swarm 13 Phanerozoic sediments Archean greenstone: pelite, siltstone, graywacke and gneiss Archean granite (undivided) 32°30'S 40 Kilometers Figure 1. Simplified geological map of the sampling area in Western Australia with known dike swarms. “16WDS” prefixes of site names are omitted for simplicity. Inset shows location of sampling area. component, which was removed by low-level unstable component, a mid-temperature com- clination [Inc] = −53.1°, cone of 95% confi- demagnetization (heating to ∼200 °C or alter- ponent (MTC) was identified in several sites dence α95 = 12.0°). After removal of these soft nating field [AF] demagnetization to ∼7 mT), between 100–300 °C and 540 °C, but it was components, a characteristic stable component appeared sporadically in cores from several only prominent enough to be defined at site decaying toward the origin of the projection sites. After the removal of this magnetically 16WDS15 (declination [Dec] = 225.2°, in- plane was identified with a lower bound of Vertical N A Horizontal N Figure 2. Paleomagnetic results. (A) Represen- Vertical tative demagnetization 1.0 Horizontal data showing sample 0.8 demagnetized thermally 0.6 indicating up-directed geomagnetic polar- 0.4 ity (left), and sample 0 20 40 60 80 100 0.2 demagnetized with alter- 1.0 nating-field (AF) methods 0 06100 200 300 400 500 00 0.8 indicating down-directed geomagnetic polarity 0.6 (right). Additional demag- netization examples are 16WDS37-4 0.4 provided in Figure S5 (see 16WDS14-4A 0.2 footnote 1). NRM—natural S,Down remanent magnetization. 0 (B–C) Equal-area pro- S,Down jections showing (B) site-mean directions of B C characteristic remanent N N magnetization (ChRM) Key with both magnetic WD 2.41 Ga Widgiemooltha dikes polarities and (C) ChRM, BS MDS (Smirnov et al., 2013) mid-temperature compo- ED 2.40 Ga Erayinia dikes nent (MTC), and younger (Pisarevsky et al., 2015) paleomagnetic directions Mean in the region (recalcu- ED BD 1.89 Ga Boonadgin dike swarm (Liu et al., 2019) lated for the present study area coordinates WD GFD 1.21 Ga Gnowangerup-Fraser dikes Mean of ChRM (Pisarevsky et al., 2014) at 31.8°S, 117.1°E). Open/ GFD filled symbols in equal- BS 1.07 Ga Bangemall sills area projections indicate (Wingate et al., 2002) MTC BD upper/lower-hemisphere MDS 755 Ma Mundine Well dikes directions. (Wingate and Giddings, 2000) Geological Society of America | GEOLOGY | Volume 49 | Number 7 | www.gsapubs.org 795 Downloaded from http://pubs.geoscienceworld.org/gsa/geology/article-pdf/49/7/794/5335893/g48575.1.pdf by guest on 25 September 2021 unblocking temperatures of 530–565 °C and a primary origin. In summary, we interpret the via” supercraton (Fig. 3; Bleeker, 2003; French an upper bound of 570–580 °C in the majority ChRM of the Yandinilling dikes to be thermo- and Heaman, 2010). Fundamental geological of samples (Fig. 2A). remanent magnetization acquired at the time of similarities shared by the Zimbabwe, Dhar- The characteristic remanent magnetization dike cooling and therefore useful for providing war, and Slave cratons suggest that they should (ChRM) directions are directed either moder- paleogeographic constraints. be grouped together (Bleeker, 2003). The ca. ately WNW-and-up or ESE-and-down (Fig. 2B). 2.62 Ga poles of Sclavia and Zimgarn put them Excluding two sites with spurious data and one DISCUSSION at similar paleolatitudes (Fig. 3), tentatively al- outlier site (16WDS33) possibly related to a Zimgarn lowing their proximity. We also followed pre- magnetic reversal or excursion (Table S1), the Based on the age match of the ca.
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