North China Archean dome-and-basin structures: Arc plutons, superimposed folds, or sagduction?

Abstract Archean dome-and-basin structures are widely interpreted to have formed in a stagnant-lid drip-tectonic or sagduction setting, unlike modern Earth. In the North China Craton, apparent dome-and-basin structures formed at high dT/dP conditions of >30 °C/km in eastern gneiss terrains are bordered by a contemporaneous 1800-km-long orogenic belt formed at low dT/dP conditions of 11–27 °C/km, exhibiting many classical hallmark indicators of plate boundary interactions of Phanerozoic orogens, suggesting contrarily that plate tectonics was operating during formation of the domes. We solve this dilemma by showing that the domes and basins formed by a combination of fold interference, temporally constrained by felsic intrusions, and folding of domal arc-related plutons. Strong deformation and metamorphism related to extrusion and overthrusting of nappes from within and below the adjacent orogen formed klippen, infolded with the gneisses, explaining the perplexing juxtaposition of plate tectonic and seemingly non-plate tectonic terrains so closely in space and time.