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6th International Archean Symposium
6th International Archean Symposium

Ultra-high-pressure to low-pressure (<250 to >1000°C/GPa) Eoarchean metamorphisms explained by lateral lithosphere movements

Oral

Oral

4:30 pm

27 July 2023

Room 1

Session 1.9 (T3)

Talk Description

Evidence for >3600 Ma low T/P metamorphism in Greenland’s Itsaq Gneiss Complex (IGC) is: (i) ~550°C ≥2.6 GPa conditions (≤250°C/GPa) demonstrated by an olivine (high –OH) + antigorite + titano-chondrodite / titano-clinohumite assemblage within low-Ti dunite-harzburgite slivers that were exhumed into the crust by 3717±6 Ma. (ii) Vestiges of 3658±3 Ma high-pressure (garnet + clinopyroxene) mafic granulite. (iii) Barrovian-style kyanite + staurolite metapelite assemblages (Fig. 1). High T/P (≥1000°C/GPa) metamorphism is shown by 3669±8 Ma trondhjemite melts equilibrated with orthopyroxene that formed coeval to the youngest juvenile tonalitic crust in the complex (latter derived by anatexis under low T/P conditions), and a 3660-3570 Ma history of deep crust migmatisation under low pressure, garnet-free conditions. Structural geology indicates the IGC’s low T/P regimes coincide with (i) crustal imbrication of arc-like tholeiites, boninites, andesites, felsic-intermediate volcano-sedimentary rocks and chemical sedimentary rocks and (ii) thrusting of older rocks over younger ones; whereas subsequent high T/P metamorphism was marked by late-orogenic extension/exhumation and deep crustal flow with granitic partial melting and mafic underplating. Thus, the diversity and sequence of Earth’s earliest-recorded geodynamic settings resembles more those in modern geodynamics, than the lithological, thermal and structural relationships expected from non-uniformitarian scenarios within a theoretical stagnant lid regime.

Speakers