Cratons are not all that stable!

Cratons are usually considered ‘old and stable’ geological units and, therefore, the do not receive as much consideration by geophysical data acquisition as active tectonic regions. However, abundant evidence shows that ‘stable’ cratons are modified substantially during their existence as demonstrated by geophysical data imaging cratonic lithosphere in several cases:

(1) The Baltic Shield formed during the Svecofennian orogeny c. 1.7 Ga and its western parts were reworked by the Sveconorwegian/Grenvillian orogeny. Recent geophysical interpretations image a large body of crustal material in eclogite facies beneath the present Moho in the central shield. This body probably formed after the initial cratonization (Buntin et al., 2021).

(2) The isopycnicity hypothesis proposes that a trade-off between composition and temperature of the lithospheric mantle maintains constant topography in cratons (Jordan, 1978) based on kimberlite data from South Africa. However, gravity data from Siberia shows that kimberlite pipes solely modify cratons in isostatic equilibrium (Artemieva et al., 2019). Therefore, kimberlite sampling is nonrepresentative, and the real composition of most cratonic mantle lithosphere is unknown.

(3) Strong seismic anisotropy is observed in many cratons and is commonly attributed to the mantle due to frozen-in lithospheric features or asthenospheric flow. Recently it was demonstrated that a major part of the anisotropy resides in the crust of the Kalahara craton and that the fast axes are parallel to the strike of major dyke swarms and orogenic fabric (Thybo et al., 2019). This finding indicates significant craton modification by magmatic intrusion.

(4) Modification by external stresses and induced magmatism may even split existing cratons.  Integrated interpretation of existing data and geodynamic modelling show that a linear sequence of volcanic harrats in the Arabian craton potentially represents the formation of a new plate boundary (Artemieva et al., 2022). It is probable that the extension in the northern Red Sea rift will jump to the volcanic lineament, which eventually will develop into new ocean spreading and effectively split the existing craton.

References

Artemieva, I.M.., Thybo, H. & Cherepanova, Y, 2019. Isopycnicity of cratonic mantle restricted to kimberlite provinces. Earth Plan. Sci. Lett. 505, 13-19, doi:10.1016/j.epsl.2018.09.034 (2019).

Artemieva, I.M., Yang, H., Thybo, H. Incipient ocean spreading beneath the Arabian shield, Earth-Science Reviews, 226, 103955 (2022)

Buntin, S., Artemieva, I.M., Malehmir, A., Thybo, H. et al. Long-lived Paleoproterozoic eclogitic lower crust. Nat Commun 12, 6553 (2021).

Jordan, T. Composition and development of the continental tectosphere. Nature 274, 544–548 (1978)

Thybo, H., Youssof, M. & Artemieva, I.M. Southern Africa crustal anisotropy reveals coupled crust-mantle evolution for over 2 billion years. Nat Commun. 10, 5445 (2019)