早期大陆与板块构造启动——前沿热点介绍与展望

Review and overview for the frontier hotspot: Early continents and start of plate tectonics

板块构造的启动时间和机制,一直是国内外地球科学界关注的焦点,有不少热点文章对此进行了讨论。它涉及的不仅是早期地球的构造机制问题,更关系到整个地球的演化历史、变化过程和演化规律,以及地球的未来。本文对国内外的研究状况、研究重点进行了简单述评,强调地球的“热状态和热演化”是构造机制演化的关键控制因素,提出大陆形成和岩石圈的演化与板块构造起源关联密切,是理解早期板块构造启动的重要研究内容。华北克拉通是代表性的古老大陆,本文对它的研究状况给出了介绍和评述。文章最后展望了“早期大陆与板块构造启动”这一重要科学问题的研究方向,并对相应的研究方法提出了评论和建议性意见。

The issues on how and when did plate tectonics begin have long been focused in the geological community,which are important for early Earth tectonic regime,evolutionary history and changing process,also for future of the Earth.This paper gives a brief introduction of the research status and critical research points on the issues,especially emphasize that thermal state and thermal evolution of the Earth dominately control the evolution of tectonic regime.We summarize that plate tectonic is closely related with the evolution of continental lithosphere,which is critical for understading origin of plate tectonics in the early history.The North China Craton is one of the representative ancient continents in the world,whose research status is also introduced in the paper.The research fronts and suggestions on"Early continent and initiation of plate tectonics"are presented at the end part of this paper,hoping to stimulate further studies.