Building Earth's oldest crust: geochemistry and geochronology of Archean cratons and early mantle

古老的地形提供了对地球最早期地壳的性质和演化的唯一限制。只有少数超过35亿年（Ga）的地形被保存下来，限制了我们对形成我们第一个大陆的过程的理解。此外，由于其活跃的构造，地球在改造和回收自己的地壳方面非常有效。因此，在地球形成后不久形成的原始地壳大部分被破坏并重新熔化，形成更年轻的岩石。我的主要目标是限制形成第一个地壳的化学性质和地质过程，以及对地幔早期化学演化的影响。太古宙的火山是我们大陆最古老的核心。它们主要由2.5至3 Ga之间形成的岩石组成，使地球地壳历史的前十亿年难以研究。然而，这个太古代地壳可以包含其更古老的前身的同位素特征。随着分析技术的日益精确，我们可以使用新的同位素工具来更好地从古代化石中提取信息。这将使我们能够更好地了解我们第一个大陆是如何以及何时形成的，并调查地球原始地壳的性质。该项目结合了多种地球化学和同位素工具，以了解最早的地壳历史，导致第一个大陆的稳定。147 Sm-143 Nd和176 Lu-176 Hf等同位素体系已成功地用于研究地壳演化。然而，由于这些示踪剂对太古代早期地壳形成后发生的地质过程也很敏感，它们往往会受到干扰，从而使最早的地壳历史难以破译。这种方法还经常要求研究人员对更古老的地壳的性质做出假设，这些地壳是建造太古代岩石的先驱来源。将传统的地质年代学和长寿命同位素系统与新的短寿命同位素系统（如146 Sm-142 Nd）相结合，可以更好地了解早期地壳历史。146 Sm-142 Nd系统只对4Ga以前的地质作用敏感，是研究太古代地幔形成过程中原始地壳参与作用的理想示踪剂。这个系统使我们能够清楚地确定是否Hadean地壳或地幔参与了太古代大陆的形成。结合短寿命和长寿命的同位素系统将使我们最完整地了解我们最古老的大陆是如何形成的。主要研究领域为：1）上级克拉通（北方魁北克、安大略和马尼托巴）代表了太古代地壳的最大范围之一，可能包括地球上最古老的岩石; 2）奈恩省（拉布拉多）的岩石年龄为3.9 Ga; 3）来自巴西的太古代地壳，这在很大程度上仍然是未经研究的; 4）澳大利亚皮尔巴拉克拉通（Pilbara craton），距今3.5Ga。

Ancient terrains provide the only constraints on the nature and evolution of Earth's earliest crust. Only few terrains older than 3.5 billion years old (Ga) are preserved, limiting our understanding of the processes that formed our first continents. Moreover, with its active tectonics, the Earth is very efficient at reworking and recycling its own crust. The primitive crust, formed shortly after Earth's formation, has therefore mostly been destroyed and re-melted to form younger rocks. My main objective is to constrain the chemical nature and geological processes that formed the first terrestrial crust as well as the impact on the early chemical evolution of Earth's mantle. Archean cratons are the most ancient cores of our continents. They are mostly composed of rocks formed between 2.5 to 3 Ga, leaving more than the first billion years of Earth's crustal history difficult to study. This Archean crust can, however, contain the isotopic signature of its older precursor. With the increasing precision of analytical techniques, we can use new isotopic tools to better extract information from ancient terranes. This will allow us to build an improved picture of how and when our first continents formed and investigate the nature of Earth's primitive crust. This project combines multiple geochemical and isotopic tools to understand the earliest crustal history, leading to the stabilization of the first continents. Isotopic systems such as 147Sm-143Nd and 176Lu-176Hf have successfully been used to study the evolution of the crust. However, because these tracers are also sensitive to geological processes occurring well after the formation of the early Archean crust, they can often be disturbed and thus make the earliest crustal history difficult to decipher. This approach also often requires that researchers make assumptions about the nature of the older crust that served as a precursor source to build Archean cratons. Coupling conventional geochronology and long-lived isotopic systems to novel short-lived isotopic systems such as 146Sm-142Nd can provide a much better understanding of the early crustal history. The 146Sm-142Nd system is only sensitive to geological processes occurring before 4 Ga and is thus the ideal tracer to study the involvement of primitive crust in the formation of Archean cratons. This system allows us to clearly establish whether Hadean crust or mantle were involved in the formation of the Archean continents. Combining short-lived and long-lived isotopic systems will give us the most complete understanding of how our oldest continents formed. The main areas of research will be 1) the Superior craton (Northern Quebec, Ontario and Manitoba) representing one of the largest extents of Archean crust and possibly including the oldest rocks on Earth; 2) the Nain Province (Labrador) with rocks as old as 3.9 Ga; 3) the Archean crust from Brazil, which is still largely unstudied; and 4) the Pilbara craton (Australia), as old as 3.5 Ga.