Petrogenesis of Early Cretaceous basaltic lavas from the North China Craton: Implications for cratonic destruction

The North China Craton (NCC) is believed to be the best example of cratonic destruction. However, the processes leading to cratonic destruction remain unclear, largely due to a lack of knowledge of the nature of the Mesozoic NCC lithospheric mantle. Here we report new petrological and geochemical data for Early Cretaceous NCC basalts, which provide insights into the nature of the underlying lithospheric mantle. The Early Cretaceous basalts (all tholeiites) show a limited variation in geochemical composition. In contrast, olivine‐hosted melt inclusions from these basalts display a wide range in compositional variation and include both alkalic and tholeiitic basaltic compositions. This result provides the direct evidence of the contribution of silica‐undersaturated alkali basaltic melts in the petrogenesis of the Early Cretaceous NCC basalts. In addition, the compositions of olivine phenocrysts and reconstructed primary melts indicate that the Early Cretaceous basalts are derived from a mixed peridotite and refertilized peridotite source. The Pb isotopic compositions of melt inclusions in high fugacity of oxygen (fo) olivines combined with trace element characteristics of these basalts reveal that heterogeneous lithospheric mantle sources for Early Cretaceous basalts were metasomatized by carbonate‐bearing eclogite‐derived melts. The Pb isotopic variations of the melt inclusions and clinopyroxene and plagioclase phenocrysts demonstrate that the mantle‐derived magmas were variably contaminated by lower continental crust. We propose that multiple subduction events during the Phanerozoic, combined with mantle‐plume activity, likely play a vital role in the generation of the Early Cretaceous voluminous magmatism and cratonic destruction.