A 2207 Ma radiating mafic dyke swarm from eastern Dharwar craton, Southern India: Drift history through Paleoproterozoic

We have attempted to reconstruct an updated APWP for Dharwar craton utilizing six well constrained key paleopoles from 2.37 Ga to 1.89 Ga periods. The path suggests that the Dharwar craton has relatively rapid drift rate (28.77 cm/yr) from 46° to 53° paleolatitude along with a clockwise rotation (30°) during the short time span of ∼9 Ma (2216 Ma-2207 Ma), when a magnetic polarity reversal occurred. However, we speculate that major tectonic activity or plate tectonic processes were responsible for rapid drift of Dharwar craton at that time. The identification of coeval mafic magmatic episodes (∼2.2 Ga) from several other Archean cratons over the globe firmly supports the popular hypothesis of supercraton breakup at ∼2.2 Ga time.