Craton margins

The commonly observed spatial association of mineral deposits and provinces with old cratonic margins, crossarc structures or tears in slabs and association of metallogenesis with times of plate re-orientation, slab-rollback and slab-foundering are important architectural and dynamic factors that suggest at least some fluids in mineral systems may originate at depths much greater than 10s of kilometres commonly assumed. 

Pearson N. J., O Reilly S. Y., and Griffin W. L. (1995) The crust-mantle boundary beneath cratons and craton margins a transect across the south-west margin of the Kaapvaal craton. Lithos 36(3-4), 257-287. 

Recent U-Pb studies of lower-crustal xeno-liths, from kimberlites where Re-Os isotope studies have been undertaken on mantle peridotites, and on lower-crustal samples from the Vredefort impact structure, further illuminate the timing of lithosphere stabilization and support the notion of widespread lithospheric mantle stabilization in Neoarchaean time. These studies reveal major episodes of Meso- to Neoarchaean thermal activity in the lower crust (Schmitz Bowring 2000 Moser et al. 2002). Some of the lower-crustal xenoliths from the craton margins... 

Fig. 7. Predicted magnitude of SKS splitting accrued through deformed plume material. (Note the region of >1 s splitting along northern craton margin.)...

---