Subduction beneath Laurentia modified the eastern North American cratonic edge: Evidence from P wave and S wave tomography

A. Boyce (Corresponding Author), I. D. Bastow, F. A. Darbyshire, A. G. Ellwood, A. Gilligan, Vadim Levin, W. Menke

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34 Citations (Scopus)
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Abstract

The cratonic cores of the continents are remarkably stable and long-lived features. Their ability to resist destructive tectonic processes is associated with their thick (∼250 km), cold, chemically depleted, buoyant lithospheric keels that isolate the cratons from the convecting mantle. The formation mechanism and tectonic stability of cratonic keels remains under debate. To address this issue, we use P wave and S wave relative arrival-time tomography to constrain upper mantle structure beneath southeast Canada and the northeast USA, a region spanning three quarters of Earth's geological history. Our models show three distinct, broad zones: Seismic wave speeds increase systematically from the Phanerozoic coastal domains, through the Proterozoic Grenville Province, and to the Archean Superior craton in central Québec. We also recover the NW-SE trending track of the Great Meteor hot spot that crosscuts the major tectonic domains. The decrease in seismic wave speed from Archean to Proterozoic domains across the Grenville Front is consistent with predictions from models of two-stage keel formation, supporting the idea that keel growth may not have been restricted to Archean times. However, while crustal structure studies suggest that Archean Superior material underlies Grenvillian age rocks up to ∼300 km SE of the Grenville Front, our tomographic models show a near-vertical boundary in mantle wave speed directly beneath the Grenville Front. We interpret this as evidence for subduction-driven metasomatic enrichment of the Laurentian cratonic margin, prior to keel stabilization. Variable chemical depletion levels across Archean-Proterozoic boundaries worldwide may thus be better explained by metasomatic enrichment than inherently less depleted Proterozoic composition at formation. ©2016. The Authors.
Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)5013-5030
Number of pages18
JournalJournal of Geophysical Research: Solid Earth
Volume121
Issue number7
Early online date2 Jul 2016
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - Jul 2016

Bibliographical note

Funding Information: NERC Doctoral Training Partnership: Science and Solutions for a Changing Planet and Leverhulme Trust

Acknowledgments
A.B. is funded by the NERC Doctoral Training Partnership: Science and Solutions for a Changing Planet. I.B. is funded by the Leverhulme Trust. F.D. acknowledges funding from NSERC through their Discovery grants and Canada Research Chairs program. We thank J. VanDecar for use of his tomographic inversion and MCCC codes. SAC [Helffrich et al., 2013] and GMT [Wessel and Smith, 1995] software were also used to process seismic data obtained from the IRIS DMC and from the Canadian National Data Centre (Natural Resources Canada). A digital supplement is also available to download containing models and the processed relative arrival‐time data set, additional information is available from A.B. (email: alistair.boyce10@imperial.ac.uk). Discussing the implications of our tomographic results with S. Goes and A. Hynes provided great motivation for this manuscript. Two anonymous reviewers helped clarify our interpretations.

Keywords

  • Body wave Tomography
  • Cratonic Margins
  • Grenville Orogeny
  • SE Canada

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