Speaker Bios (Current Season)

February 5th, 2026

  Cratonic mantle has long been viewed as a stable, Archean relic that underpins Earth's oldest continents. However, growing evidence from mantle xenoliths reveals that cratonic mantle is not a static entity but an evolving system that records billions of years of metasomatic overprinting. In this talk, I synthesize petrological, geochemical, and isotopic constraints on the multi-stage evolution of the subcontinental lithospheric mantle beneath cratons, from its Archean formation to Phanerozoic modification immediately preceding kimberlite magmatism. A temporal framework for the genesis of proto-kimberlitic fluids is given by localized hydrous and Ti-rich metasomatism that induces deformation. Together, these observations reveal a dynamic cratonic mantle shaped by episodic carbonatitic metasomatism operating over billions of years, largely hidden from the crustal record and focused beneath kimberlite provinces.