A Pilbara perspective on the generation of Archaean continental crust

Models for the generation and evolution of continental crust are informed by a detailed understanding of regional geology and geochemistry. This contribution therefore evaluates the increasing amounts of high quality geochemical data, on well-characterized samples, now available from the magmatic rocks of the Pilbara Craton, Western Australia. The East Pilbara Terrane is characterized by vertical dome and basin tectonics, and the younger (Mesoarchean) rocks to the west are associated with lateral tectonics. The craton stabilized at ~2.95 Ga (Hickman, 2012), and it was overlain by voluminous, dominantly mafic lavas of the Fortescue Group in an intra-cratonic setting at ~2.7 Ga. The magmatic rocks of the Pilbara Craton are bimodal in SiO2, with the volcanic rocks typically having 60% SiO2, and such differences are in part linked to different depths of magma emplacement. The volcanic rocks are divided into two groups, with Dy/La > and