Earth's continents are slowly moving across the planet's surface due to plate tectonics, culminating in regions of crustal expansion and collision. In the latter case, high temperatures and pressures ...

Earth’s continental crust may have begun forming hundreds of millions of years earlier than previously thought, Yale scientists say — and the reason will be obvious to anyone who has ever baked a cake ...

The Earth's oldest surface layer forming continents, termed its crust, is approximately 4 billion years old and is comprised of 25–50km-thick volcanic rocks known as basalts. Originally, scientists ...

Spiral Galaxy from Kirkland et al. CREDIT Chris Kirkland and colleagues. A new study of zircon crystals from two of Earth’s oldest continents indicates that the formation of Earth’s continental crust ...

Parts of ancient Earth may have formed continents and recycled crust through subduction far earlier than previously thought. New research led by scientists at the University of Wisconsin–Madison has ...

The formation of Earth’s earliest continental crust during the Archean eon (4.0–2.5 Ga) reflects a complex interplay of mantle melting, magmatic differentiation and crustal recycling. Partial melting ...

Ancient, expansive tracts of continental crust called cratons have helped keep Earth's continents stable for billions of years, even as landmasses shift, mountains rise and oceans form. A new ...

The discovery of a new primitive microcontinent between Greenland and Canada could help scientists understand how microcontinents form. Researchers studied how the tectonic plates of the Davis Strait ...

Olivine cumulate from the Weltevreden Formation showing that although these cumulates are significantly altered, they still contain preserved unaltered olivine cores (microscopic image taken in ...

Most geologists believe the Himalayas’ immense height results from thickening of the Earth’s crust.

The Earth is four and a half billion years old, so why they started appearing then is unknown, as is the mechanism to make that continental crust.” Johnson and his colleagues are now arguing that the ...