The 4.5-billion-year record contained in Earth’s continental crust reveals a seven-phase evolution, from an initial magma ocean to the present-day environment in which we live.
cratons
Posted inEditors' Highlights
Why is the North China Craton Vulnerable to Destruction?
A new study suggests that carbonatite metasomatism, not silicate metasomatism as previously thought, was dominant prior to the removal of the North China Craton in the early Cretaceous.
Posted inScience Updates
Earth’s Continents Share an Ancient Crustal Ancestor
How did today’s continents come to be? Geological sleuths found clues in grains of sand.
Posted inEditors' Highlights
The Great Unconformities?
New thermochronology data and thermal history modeling from the Canadian Shield show that the Great Unconformity formed there later than elsewhere in North America and may represent another event.
Posted inFeatures
Cratons, Why Are You Still Here?
How have these continental relics from Earth’s early history survived the plate tectonic mixing machine?
Posted inNews
Modeling the Creation of Cratons, Earth’s Secret Keepers
Geoscientists have long been trying to answer the complicated questions of how and why Earth’s continents formed. New research suggests a solution that surprised even the investigators themselves.
Posted inNews
Cratons Mark the Spot for Mineral Bonanzas
A new map of the thickness of Earth’s lithosphere contains clues to large deposits of key metals.
Posted inScience Updates
Exploring by Boring: Geothermal Wells as Research Tools
As part of an effort to develop a geothermal energy source beneath its campus, Cornell University is planning to probe the “boring” old continental crust upon which many people live.
Posted inResearch Spotlights
Variable Mantle Lies Below Ancient Pieces of Earth's Crust
Underneath old and stable pieces of Earth's crust in North America, the mantle's uppermost portion contains multiple layers that change the velocities of seismic waves.