Литосфера (Oct 2018)

The early evolution of the earth, the beginning of its geological history: how and when the granitoid magmas appeared

  • Mikhail I. Kuzmin,
  • Vladimir V. Yarmolyuk,
  • Alexander B. Kotov

DOI
https://doi.org/10.24930/1681-9004-2018-18-5-653-671
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 0, no. 5
pp. 653 – 671

Abstract

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The Earth has a number of differences from the planets of the Solar System and other star-planetary systems. These differences were acquired during its formation and geological history. In the early Chaotic eon occurred the accretion of the Earth, the separation of the primary substance of the Earth into a mantle and a nucleus, a satellite of the Earth - the Moon appeared. 4500 Ma ago in the Gadey aeon the geological history of the Earth began. At this time, the endogenous processes on the Earth were controlled to a great extent by meteorite-asteroid bombardments, which caused large-scale melting and differentiation of the upper shells of the Earth. In the magmatic chambers differentiation proceeded until the appearance of melts of granitoid composition. The continental crust of Gadey time was almost completely destroyed by meteoric bombardments, the last heavy bombardment occurred at the end of the Gadey aeon 4000-3900 Ma ago. The geological situation of the Gadey time can be judged only from the preserved zircons from the rocks of that epoch. In particular, their geochemical features indicate that the Earth has an atmosphere. The Gadey eon was replaced by the Archean one, from which the processes of self-organization began to predominate on the Earth. At this time, a crust composed of komatiite-basalt and tonalite-trondhjemite-granodiorite (TTG) series of rocks was formed. In its formation, the processes of sagduction (vertical growth of the crust) over the rising mantle plumes was played the leading role. At the same time the lower basaltic crust was bured in the mantle, eclogitized and melted, which led to the appearance of the sodium series of TTG rocks. At the end of the Archean 3.1-3.0 Ga tectonics of the cover (LID tectonics), which determined the style of the structure and development of the Archean crust, is replaced by the tectonics of small plates, which was later replaced by modern tectonics - the tectonics of plates combined with mantle plumes.

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