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370 SLEEP Annu. Rev. Earth. Planet. Sci. 2005.33:369-393. Downloaded from arjournals.annualreviews.org by Dr. Norman Sleep on 04/15/05. For personal use only. Figure 1 Simplified geological map of North America (modified after Chulick & Mooney 2002). Dotted line separates platform from the orogens to the east, south, and west. Dashed line separates craton from platform. Note the rifted craton of the Nain Province in Baffin Bay and the Michigan basin with several kilometers of platform subsidence. 2. CRATONAL LITHOSPHERE The cratonal lithosphere extends to a depth of about 200 km. Until recently, earth scientists did not have a good way to quantify this depth. They used seismology and heat flow. Mantle xenoliths from diamond pipes (kimberlites sensu latu) now provide more precise data (Figure 2). Strictly speaking, the data constrain the geotherm on the day and place of the eruption. 2.1. Heat Flow within the Lithosphere The xenolith geotherm is a good starting point from which to discuss cratons. The xenoliths give the heat flow through the rigid part of the mantle lithosphere. The
EVOLUTION OF THE CONTINENTAL LITHOSPHERE 371 Annu. Rev. Earth. Planet. Sci. 2005.33:369-393. Downloaded from arjournals.annualreviews.org by Dr. Norman Sleep on 04/15/05. For personal use only. Figure 2 The xenolith geotherm beneath the Slave Province in Canada. Data from the Jericho kimberlite by Kopylova et al. (1999) using the pressure-temperature formulation of Brey & Köhler (1990) and converted to depth by Sleep (2003b). Squares are unsheared xenoliths, triangles are sheared xenoliths, and asterisks are megacrystalline xenoliths. The conductive geotherm in the mantle extrapolates to the base of the crust at point X and to the MORB adiabat at point L. The shallow geotherm G is measurable in boreholes. array is linear within error (Figure 2). The conductive heat flow is q = k ∂T ∂ Z , (1) where k is the thermal conductivity, T is temperature, and Z is depth. The geotherm is nonlinear if the conductivity is not constant, if the lithosphere is not in steady state, or if there is significant radioactive heat generation. For example, at steady state, ∂q =−Q, (2) ∂ Z where Q is radioactive heat generation per volume. It is futile to attempt to resolve slight variations of conductivity and the feeble amount of radioactive heat generation in the mantle from these data. There is good hope of recognizing nonsteady states, especially in regions such as southern Africa where kimberlites erupted over aperiod of time (Bell et al. 2003, Griffin et al. 2003b). In detail, the low-temperature envelope is probably the best estimate of the geotherm. The kimberlite magmas sometimes pond and partly crystallize at depth.
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