The story of a craton from heart to margins: illuminating cratonic lithosphere with Rayleigh wave phase velocities in Eastern Canada

Abstract:

Cratons are Precambrian continental nuclei that are geologically distinct from modern continental regions and are typically underlain by seismically fast lithospheric roots (keels) to at least 200 km depth. Both plate and non-plate tectonic origin theories such as stacking of subducted slabs or multiple mantle plume underplating have been proposed to explain keel growth.
Eastern Canada is an ideal continental region to investigate cratonization processes and the onset of plate tectonics. It comprises part of the largest Archean craton in the world, the Superior Province, flanked by a ~1.1 Ga Himalayan-scale orogenic belt, the Grenville Province, and the 500-300 Ma old Appalachian orogenic province, following the same general SW-NE axial trend. The region is also cross-cut by the Great Meteor Hotspot track, providing an excellent opportunity to study the interaction of hotspot tectonism with progressively younger lithospheric domains.
We investigate the lithospheric structure of Precambrian Eastern Canada using teleseismic earthquake data recorded at permanent and temporary networks. We measure interstation dispersion curves of Rayleigh wave phase velocities between ~15 and 220 s, and compare the results to standard continental and cratonic reference models. We combine the dispersion curves via a tomographic inversion which solves for isotropic phase velocity heterogeneity and azimuthal anisotropy across the region at a range of periods. The phase velocity maps indicate variations in lithospheric properties from the heart of the Superior craton to the SE Canadian coast.
The new regional-scale models will help to understand the processes that generated, stabilized and reworked the cratonic roots through their billion-year tectonic history. We investigate how surface tectonic boundaries relate to deeper lithospheric structural changes, and consider the effects of the multiple Wilson cycles that affected Laurentia.