Mechanism of Crust Growth Constrained by Back-Calculated U/Pb Ratios of the New Continental Crust

Abstract

The mechanism of continental crust growth remains ambiguous. A key constraint is determining which tectonic settings were involved in the formation of the new continental crust. Because the basalts formed in intraplate (OIB, mean U/Pb = ~0.37 ± 0.11) and subduction (IAB, mean U/Pb = ~0.10 ± 0.06) settings have distinct U/Pb ratios, thus we back-calculate the present-day U/Pb ratios of the New Continental crust source [(U/Pb)_nc] based on our zircon-Hf and published whole rock-Pb isotope compositions of the Wulaga I-type granite to unfold the mechanism of the crust growth in the Lesser Xing’an Range (LXR), of the eastern Central Asian orogenic belt (CAOB). The Wulaga granodiorite porphyry yields zircon U-Pb ages of 103 ± 1 Ma with ε_Hf(t) of +6.0 to +9.0 and T_DM2 of 590 to 784 Ma (averaging at 709 ± 100 Ma). This result indicates that the Early Cretaceous Wulaga granodiorite porphyry was derived from the Neoproterozoic juvenile basaltic crust. The back-calculated (U/Pb)_nc values (0.15–0.18) may approximately represent the U/Pb ratios of the basaltic protolith of the Wulaga granite. It is similar to the U/Pb ratios in the IAB magmas within the calculation errors. Therefore, the crust growth of the LXR may occur through subduction at ca. 700 Ma. In addition, this geochemical method also has been successfully applied to unfold the mechanism of the crust accretion of both the Jibei area in North China at ca. 2.0 Ga and the Hongol area in the eastern CAOB during ca. 1.1–0.8 Ga. The back-calculation of the present U/Pb ratio of the protolith of I-type granites in this study may constitute a potential method to constrain the mechanism of continental crustal accretion.

Keywords

Lesser Xing’an Range / crustal accretion / I-type granite / zircon-Hf isotope / whole rock-Pb isotope / geochemistry / structural geology

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