Craton

A craton ( /ˈkreɪtɒn/, /ˈkrætɒn/, or

/ˈkreɪtən/;[1][2][3] from Greek: κράτος kratos
"strength") is an old and stable part of the
continental lithosphere, where the lithosphere
consists of the Earth's two topmost layers, the
crust and the uppermost mantle. Having often
survived cycles of merging and rifting of
continents, cratons are generally found in the
interiors of tectonic plates. They are
characteristically composed of ancient crystalline
basement rock, which may be covered by younger
sedimentary rock. They have a thick crust and Geologic provinces of the World (USGS)
Shield Oceanic crust:
deep lithospheric roots that extend as much as
Platform 0–20 Ma
several hundred kilometres into the Earth's
mantle. Orogen 20–65 Ma

Basin >65 Ma
The term craton is used to distinguish the stable
portion of the continental crust from regions that Large igneous province

are more geologically active and unstable. Extended crust

Cratons can be described as shields, in which the
basement rock crops out at the surface, and
platforms, in which the basement is overlaid by sediments and sedimentary rock.

The word craton was first proposed by the Austrian geologist Leopold Kober in 1921 as Kratogen, referring to stable continental
platforms, and orogen as a term for mountain or orogenic belts. Later Hans Stille shortened the former term to kraton from which
craton derives.[4]

Examples of cratons are the North China Craton, the Sarmatian Craton in Russia and Ukraine, the Amazonia Craton in South
America, the Kaapvaal Craton in South Africa, the North American or Laurentia Craton, and the Gawler Craton in South Australia.

Contents
Structure
Formation
Erosion
See also
Notes
References
External links

Structure
Cratons have thick lithospheric roots. Mantle tomography shows that cratons are underlain by anomalously cold mantle
corresponding to lithosphere more than twice the typical 100 km (60 mi) thickness of mature oceanic or non-cratonic, continental
lithosphere.[5] At that depth, craton roots extend into the asthenosphere.[5] Craton lithosphere is distinctly different from oceanic
lithosphere because cratons have a neutral or positive buoyancy, and a low intrinsic isopycnic density. This low density offsets
density increases due to geothermal contraction and prevents the craton from sinking into the deep mantle. Cratonic lithosphere is
[6]
much older than oceanic lithosphere—up to 4 billion years versus 180 million years.

Rock fragments (xenoliths) carried up from the mantle by magmas containing peridotite have been delivered to the surface as
inclusions in subvolcanic pipes called kimberlites. These inclusions have densities consistent with craton composition and are
composed of mantle material residual from high degrees of partial melt. Peridotite is strongly influenced by the inclusion of moisture.
Craton peridotite moisture content is unusually low, which leads to much greater strength. It also contains high percentages of low-
weight magnesium instead of higher-weight calcium and iron.[7] Peridotites are important for understanding the deep composition
and origin of cratons because peridotite nodules are pieces of mantle rock modified by partial melting. Harzburgite peridotites
represent the crystalline residues after extraction of melts of compositions like
basalt and komatiite.

Formation
The process by which cratons were formed from early rock is called cratonization. The first large cratonic landmasses formed during
the Archean eon. During the early Archean, Earth's heat flow was nearly three times higher than it is today because of the greater
concentration of radioactive isotopes and the residual heat from the Earth's accretion. There was considerably greater tectonic and
volcanic activity; the mantle was less viscous and the crust thinner. This resulted in rapid formation of oceanic crust at ridges and hot
spots, and rapid recycling of oceanic crustat subduction zones. There are at least three hypotheses of how cratons have been formed:
1) surface crust was thickened by a rising plume of deep molten material, 2) successive subducting plates of oceanic lithosphere
became lodged beneath a proto-craton in an under-plating process, 3) accretion from island arcs or continental fragments rafting
together to thicken into a craton.[8]

Earth's surface was probably broken up into many small plates with volcanic islands and arcs in great abundance. Small
protocontinents (cratons) formed as crustal rock was melted and remelted by hot spots and recycled in subduction zones.

There were no large continents in the early Archean, and small protocontinents were probably the norm in the Mesoarchean because
they were prevented from coalescing into larger units by the high rate of geologic activity. These felsic protocontinents (cratons)
probably formed at hot spots from a variety of sources: mafic magma melting more felsic rocks, partial melting of mafic rock, and
from the metamorphic alteration of felsic sedimentary rocks. Although the first continents formed during the Archean, rock of this
age makes up only 7% of the world's current cratons; even allowing for erosion and destruction of past formations, evidence suggests
that only 5 to 40 percent of the presentcontinental crust formed during the Archean.[9]

One perspective of how the cratonization process might have first begun in the Archean is given by
Warren B. Hamilton:

Very thick sections of mostly submarine mafic, and subordinate ultramafic, volcanic rocks, and mostly younger
subaerial and submarine felsic volcanic rocks and sediments were oppressed into complex synforms between rising
young domiform felsic batholiths mobilized by hydrous partial melting in the lower crust. Upper-crust granite-and-
greenstone terrains underwent moderate regional shortening, decoupled from the lower crust, during compositional
inversion accompanying doming, but cratonization soon followed. Tonalitic basement is preserved beneath some
greenstone sections but supracrustal rocks commonly give way downward to correlative or younger plutonic rocks...
Mantle plumes probably did not yet exist, and developing continents were concentrated in cool regions. Hot-region
upper mantle was partly molten, and voluminous magmas, mostly ultramafic, erupted through many ephemeral
submarine vents and rifts focussed at the thinnest crust.... Surviving Archean crust is from regions of cooler
, and more
depleted, mantle, wherein greater stability permitted uncommonly thick volcanic accumulations from which
[10]
voluminous partial-melt, low-density felsic rocks could be generated.
Erosion
The long-term erosion of cratons has been labelled the "cratonic regime". It involves processes of pediplanation and etchplanation
that lead to the formation of flattish surfaces known as peneplains.[11] While the process of etchplanation is associated to humid
climate and pediplanation with arid and semi-arid climate shifting climate over geological time leads to the formation of so-called
polygenetic peneplains of mixed origin. Another result of the longevity of cratons is that they may alternate between periods of high
and low relative sea levels. High relative sea level leads to increased oceanicity, while the opposite leads to increased inland
conditions.[11]

Many cratons have had subdued topographies since Precambrian times, for example the Yilgarn Craton of Western Australia was
flattish already by Middle Proterozoic times[11] and the Baltic Shield had been eroded into a subdued terrain already during the Late
Mesoproterozoic when the rapakivi granites intruded.[12][13]

See also
List of shields and cratons
Cratonic sequence

Notes
1. "Definition of craton in US English"(http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/us/definition/american_english/craton). Oxford
Dictionaries.
2. "Definition of craton in English"(http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/craton). Oxford Dictionaries.
3. Macquarie Dictionary (5th ed.). Sydney: Macquarie Dictionary Publishers Pty Ltd. 2009.
4. Şengör, A.M.C. (2003). The Large-wavelength Deformations of the Lithosphere: Materials for a history of the
evolution of though from the earliest times toi plate tectonics
. Geological Society of America memoir. 196. p. 331.
5. Petit (2010) p.24
6. Petit (2010) p.25
7. Petit (2010) p.25-26
8. Petit (2010) p.26
9. Stanley (1999)
10. Hamilton (1999)
11. Fairbridge, Rhodes W.; Finkl Jr., Charles W. (1980). "Cratonic erosion unconformities and peneplains".The Journal
of Geology. 88 (1): 69–86.
12. Lindberg, Johan (April 4, 2016)."berggrund och ytformer"(http://uppslagsverket.fi/sv/sok/view-103684-BerggrundOc
hYtformer). Uppslagsverket Finland(in Swedish).
13. Lundmark, Anders Mattias; Lamminen, Jarkko (2016). "The provenance and setting of the Mesoproterozoic Dala
Sandstone, western Sweden, and paleogeographic implications for southwestern Fennoscandia".
Precambrian
Research. 275: 197–208.

References
Dayton, Gene (2006). Geological Evolution of Australia. Sr. Lecturer, Geography, School of Humanities, Central
Queensland University, Australia.
Grotzinger, John P.; Jordan, Thomas H. (4 February 2010), Understanding Earth (Sixth ed.), W. H. Freeman,
ISBN 978-1429219518
Hamilton, Warren B. (1999). "How did the Archean Earth Lose Heat?". Department of Geophysics, Colorado School
of Mines, Journal of Conference Abstracts. 4 (1). Archived from the original on 2006-05-14.. Symposium A08, Early
Evolution of the Continental Crust.

Hamilton, Warren B. (August 1998)."Archean magmatism and deformation were not products of plate tectonics"
.
Precambrian Research. 91 (1–2): 143–179. doi:10.1016/S0301-9268(98)00042-4.
 Petit, Charles (18 December 2010)."Continental Hearts - Science News". Science News. Society for Science & the
Public. 178 (13): 22–26. doi:10.1002/scin.5591781325. ISSN 0036-8423.
Stanley, Steven M. (1999). Earth System History. New York: W.H. Freeman and Company. pp. 297–302. ISBN 0-
7167-2882-6.

External links
Smithsonian. "The Dynamic Earth @ National Museum of Natural History"
. Smithsonian National Museum of Natural
History. Retrieved 2011-01-09.

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