Life cycle of an Archean subduction zone from initiation to arc–polarity reversal: Insights from the Zunhua ophiolitic mélange, North China Craton 
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Subduction initiation and arc–polarity reversal have rarely been recognized in the Archean rock record. We document Neoarchean subduction initiation, fore-arc magmatism, and an arc–polarity reversal event from the Zunhua structural belt along the eastern margin of the Central Orogenic Belt (COB) of the North China Craton (NCC). The Zunhua ophiolitic mélange within the Zunhua structural belt is a mappable unit characterized by blocks of metamorphosed harzburgite/lherzolite, podiform chromite –bearing dunite, pyroxenite, amphibolite, metabasites (basalt and diabase) with rare intermediate volcanics, chert, and tectonic lenses of banded iron formation in a strongly sheared metapelitic matrix. New geochronological and geochemical analyses of magmatic blocks within the ophiolitic mélange show that the crustal magmatic rocks were produced in a fore-arc region at 2.55–2.52 Ga from depletion of the harzburgitic–lherzolitic mantle tectonites. Chemical, petrological, and temporal links between the depleted mantle blocks, and the suite of magmatic blocks derived from partial melting and metasomatism of these depleted mantle blocks, unequivocally shows that they represent part of the same original Neoarchean fore-arc ophiolite suite. After formation and accretion in the oceanic realm, the mélange was emplaced on the continental margin of the Eastern Block between 2.52–2.50 Ga, and underwent two stages of metamorphism at ca. 2.48–2.46 Ga and 1.81 Ga. Metamorphosed intermediate–mafic volcanic blocks exhibit systematic successive geochemical variations, from MORB-like to volcanic arc-like, and the N-MORB-like meta-basalts show remarkable similarity with the subduction initiation-related Izu–Bonin–Mariana (IBM) fore-arc basalts. We suggest that the Zunhua fore-arc complex records continuous geodynamic processes from subduction initiation to arc magmatism. The Zunhua ophiolitic mélange is part of a ca. 2.5 Ga suture between an oceanic arc of the COB and Eastern Block of the NCC. After the arc–continent collision, an arc–polarity reversal event has been proposed to initiate a new eastward–dipping subduction zone on the western side of the COB. This arc–polarity reversal can be traced for more than 1,600 km along the length of the orogen, similar in scale, geometry, and duration between collision and polarity flip to the present-day arc–polarity reversal of the Sunda–Banda arc during its ongoing collision with the Australia continent. This indicates that a life cycle of an Archean subduction zone, including birth (subduction initiation), maturity (arc magmatism), death (arc-continent collision) and re-birth (arc–polarity reversal), is recorded in the Zunhua ophiolitic mélange, and the geodynamics of plate tectonics at the end of the Archean was similar to that of today.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".