Integration of geology, geophysics and geochemistry: A key to understanding the North China Craton

Archaean–Proterozoic crust, atop a thick (180 km), cold (40 mW/m2), melt-depleted mantle keel, characterised the North China Craton (NCC) at the end of the Precambrian. Differing ages for Pre-Cambrian crust and underlying mantle reveal decoupling brought about by repeated orogenic events over the history of the NCC. The most recent thermo-tectonic episode in the Mesozoic–Cenozoic virtually replaced/transformed all of the Precambrian lithosphere. Whether this was caused by “top-down” rapid delamination ( 64 mW/m2], thin continental lithosphere (< 50 km) and thin crust (< 32 km) adjacent to the intra-cratonic Bohai Sea.