Nature Communications (Jul 2019)
Continuous plate subduction marked by the rise of alkali magmatism 2.1 billion years ago
Abstract
The point in time in which the ancient stagnant-lid tectonic regime with episodic plate subduction changed to continuous plate subduction is still topic of scientific debate. Here, the authors present vast geochemical dataset covering the last 3.5 billion years of Earth’s history and date the onset of continuous subduction to about 2.1 billion years ago.