100th Anniversary Special Paper: Secular Changes in Global Tectonic Processes and Their Influence on the Temporal Distribution of Gold-Bearing Mineral Deposits 论文

摘要

Mineral deposit types commonly have a distinctive temporal distribution with peaks at specific periods of Earth history. Deposits of less redox-sensitive metals, such as gold, show long-term temporal patterns that relate to first-order changes in an evolving Earth, as a result of progressively declining heat production and attendant changes in global tectonic processes. Despite abundant evidence for plate tectonics in the early Pre-cambrian, it is evident that plume events were more abundant in a hotter Earth. Episodic growth of juvenile continental crust appears to have been related to short-lived (<100 m.y.) cata-strophic mantle-plume events and formation of supercontinents, whereas shielding mantle-plume events cor-related with their breakup. Different mineral deposit types are associated with this cycle of supercontinent for-mation and breakup. Broadly synchronous with juvenile continental crust formation was the development of subcontinental lithospheric mantle, which evolved due to progressively declining heat flow and decreasing plume activity. Archean subcontinental lithospheric mantle has a distinct mineralogical composition and is buoyant, whereas later lithosphere was progressively more dense. Changes in the buoyancy of both oceanic lithosphere and subcontinental lithospheric mantle led to evolution of tectonic scenarios in which buoyant, roughly equidimensional, early Precambrian cratons were rimmed by Proterozoic or Phanerozoic linear elon-