CRUSTAL EVOLUTION AND PLATE

TECTONICS
 INTRODUCTION
The formation of the Earth is reckoned at 4.56 giga years (Ga) by Pb-
Pb, Sm-Nd and Rb-Sr isotopic dating of lunar rocks and the primitive
carbonaceous chondritic meteorites.

The record of the oldest events is found in geological provinces

that aggregate to hardly 10,000 sq. km, out of the 150 million sq.
km of the Continental Crust. Such rare records are preserved in
three large areas, viz., Itsaq Gneiss Complex in Nuuk region of
Greenland, Uivak Gneiss Complex of the adjacent Labrador in
Canada and the Narryer gneiss Complex of Western Australia
(Ramakrishnan and Vaidyanadhan, 2008).

There appears to have been five stages in Earth’s evolution, with

the last four being recorded in the geology of the continental
crust. The continental crust is the archive of Earth’s history. Its rock
units record events that are heterogeneous in time with distinctive
peaks and troughs of various ages.
 WHAT IS CRUST
The Crust is the outermost layer of a planet
and is composed of a great variety of igneous,
metamorphic, and sedimentary rocks.
The Crust is underlain by the mantle. The
upper part of the Mantle is composed mostly
of peridotite, a rock denser than rocks
common in the overlying Crust.
To understand the formation of the crust, first of
all we should know the origin of the earth
 Stages in Planetary Evolution

1. Planetesimals
… small bodies formed
from dust and gas
eddies

2. Protoplanets
9 or 10 formed from
planetesimals

3. Planets
formed by combining
protoplanets swept up
by gravitational
attraction.
 Stages in Formation of Early Earth

From (A) a homogeneous, low-density protoplanet to (B) a dense, differentiated planet

Precambrian 4 Billion Years
88% of geologic time
 Precambrian
• The term Precambrian is informal widely used for
reference to time and rocks.
• The Precambrian includes time from Earth’s origin
4.6 billion years ago to the beginning of the
Phanerozoic Eon, 545 million years ago.
• No rocks are known for the first 640 million
years of geologic time the oldest known rocks on
Earth are 3.96 billion years old.
 Rocks Difficult to Interpret
• The earliest record of geologic time preserved in
rocks is difficult to interpret
– many Precambrian rocks have been
• altered by metamorphism
• complexly deformed
• buried deep beneath younger rocks
• fossils are rare
• Subdivisions of the Precambrian have been
difficult to establish
 Eons of the Precambrian
• Two eons for the Precambrian
– are the Archean and Proterozoic
• Hadean is an informal designation
– for the time preceding the Archean Eon
– period for which we don't have a rock record
• Precambrian eons have no stratotypes
– eons strictly denote times
– unlike the Cambrian Period
• based on the Cambrian System, a time-stratigraphic unit
with a stratotype in Wales
 What Happened During the Hadean?

• No rocks of Hadean age present on Earth

– except for meteorites
• We do know some events that took place
– Earth accreted from planetesimals
– differentiated into a core and mantle
and some crust (how much, how thin/thick?)
– Earth was bombarded by meteorites
– volcanic activity was ubiquitous
– atmosphere formed, quite different from today’s
– oceans began to accumulate
 Hot, Barren, Waterless Early Earth

• Shortly after accretion, Earth was

– a rapidly rotating, hot, barren, waterless planet
– bombarded by comets and meteorites
– with no continents, intense cosmic radiation
– widespread volcanism
 Oldest Rocks
• Judging from the oldest known rocks on Earth
• the 3.96-billion-year-old Acasta Gneiss in Canada and
other rocks in Montana
– some continental crust had evolved by 4 billion
years ago
• Sedimentary rocks in Australia contain detrital
zircons dated at 4.2 billion years old
• These rocks indicted that some kind of Hadean
crust was certainly present
– distribution is unknown
 Hadean Crust
• Early Hadean crust was probably thin, unstable and
made up of ultramafic rock
• rock with comparatively little silica
•This ultramafic crust was disrupted
•by upwelling basaltic magma at ridges
•and consumed at subduction zones

•Later Hadean continental crust may have formed by

evolution of felsic material
•only felsic crust, because of its lower density, is immune to destruction by subduction
 Dynamic Processes
• During the Hadean, various dynamic systems
became operative,
– but not all at the same time nor in their present forms
• Once Earth differentiated
• into core, mantle and crust,

- internal heat caused

interactions among plates as they
diverged, converged, and slid
past each other
•Continents began to grow
by accretion along
convergent plate boundaries
 Structure of the Earth

• The Earth is made

Mantle
up of 3 main
layers: Outer core
– Core Inner core
– Mantle
– Crust

Crust
 The Crust
• This is where we live!

• The Earth’s crust is made of:

Continental Crust Oceanic Crust

- thick (10-70km) - thin (~7 km)
- buoyant (less dense - dense (sinks under
than oceanic crust) continental crust)
- mostly old - young
 Earth’s Mantle
• Solid rock layer between the crust and the core.
• 2,885 km thick, the mantle is 82% of Earth’s volume.
• Mantle composition = ultramafic rock called peridotite.
• Below ~100-150 km, the rock is hot enough to flow.
• It convects: hot mantle rises, cold mantle sinks.
• Three subdivisions: upper, transitional, and lower.
 Tectonic plates

• Plates are
made of rigid
Lithosphere.
The lithosphere is made up
of the crust and the upper
part of the mantle.
 Plate Movement
• “Plates” of lithosphere are moved around by the
underlying hot mantle convection cells
 Three types of plate boundary

• Divergent

• Convergent

• Transform
 Divergent Boundaries

• Spreading ridges
– As plates move apart new material is erupted
to fill the gap
Oceanic Crust
Himalayas & movement of Indian Plate
 Earth’s Evolution through Five Stages

Hawkesworth et al. (2016) recognize five stages of Earth’s

evolution: (1) initial accretion and differentiation of the
core/mantle system within the first few tens of millions of
years; (2) generation of crust in a pre-plate tectonic regime in
the period prior to 3.0 Ga; (3) early plate tectonics involving
hot subduction with shallow slab breakoff over the period from
3.0 to 1.7 Ga; (4) Earth’s middle age from 1.7 to 0.75 Ga,
characterized by environmental, evolutionary, and lithospheric
stability; (5) modern cold subduction, which has existed for the
past 0.75 b.y.
 Crustal Evolution Stage
• Second stage in crustal evolution began as Earth’s
production of radiogenic heat decreased
• Subduction and partial melting of earlier-formed
basaltic crust
– resulted in the origin of andesitic island arcs
• Partial melting of lower crustal andesites,
– yielded silica-rich granitic magmas
• Several sialic continental nuclei had formed by the
beginning of Archean time
Addition of crust
Pacific Ring of Fire

Hotspot
volcanoes
 DEVELOPMENT OF CONTINENTAL CRUST THROUGH DIFFERENT AGES

Schematic sections of Hadean, Archean, and modern continental crust. Hadean and
Archean sections adapted from Kamber et al. (2005) and modern crust from
Hawkesworth and Kemp (2006). TTG—tonalite-trondhjemite-granodiorite.
Distribution of Precambrian Rocks
 INDIAN PLATE
Indian lithospheric plate is part of the Indo-Australian plate which is divisible
into two parts. The part south of 40 degree south is the Australian plate and the part
north of 40 degree south is the Indian plate. Indian and all others plates and their
constituents rock types, either in continental or oceanic part, are the products of
endogenic processes operating in the mantle at various depths. Continental part of the
Indian plate presently consists of Sri Lanka, the Palk Strait between mainland India
and Sri Lanka, and the Indian subcontinent (mainland). The Indian subcontinent is
made up of following terrains – Western Dharwar Craton, Eastern Dharwar Craton,
Singhbhum Craton, Bundelkhand Craton, Aravalli Craton and Southern granulite
terrains; accreted at different times. The Oceanic part of the Indian plate consists of
the Arabian sea, the Central Indian oceans and the Bay of Bengal (Naqvi,2005). The
Indian Cratons have Palaeoarchaean nuclei, 3310 to 3560 Ma in age, comprising
granitic gneisses and basic-ultrabasic rock complexes (Valdiya, 2010).
 INDIAN CRATON & RAJASTHAN

The geological history of the northwest Indian Craton in

Rajasthan region covers a wide span of time from ca.3.5 Ga to
0.5 Ga. This Craton incorporates a wide range of lithological
and tectonic units – Banded Gnessic Complex (BGC), Aravalli
Supergroup(ASG) and Delhi Supergroup (DSG) {Proterozoic
fold belts}, and Late Proterozoic Malani, Jalore and Siwana
igneous suites. Basement rocks of Bhilwara Supergroup (BSG)
are of Archaean age. This is evident from ca. 3.5 Ga age of some
mafic inclusions within the BGC (Mac Dougall et al., 1983)
and from 2.9 Ga age of the intrusive Untala and Gingla
granitoids ( Chaudhary et al., 1984).
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