Laboratory experiments serendipitously revealed a rock-forming process that might explain how the first continental crust formed on Earth—and possibly on Mars.
Earth’s crust
Posted inResearch Spotlights
Support for a “Jelly Sandwich” Model of the Tibetan Plateau
Computer modeling constrained by positional data collected in the aftermath of the 2008 Wenchuan earthquake indicates the lower crust is less viscous than the upper mantle below it.
Posted inEditors' Vox
The Birth, Growth, and Death of Continents
There are various explanations for how the Earth’s continents form, develop, and change but challenges remain in fully understanding the driving forces behind plate tectonics on our planet.
Posted inResearch Spotlights
Measuring Sea Level Rise Along the Coast
Scientists created a global map of vertical land motion to show how the solid ground is moving relative to the planet’s rising seas.
Posted inEditors' Highlights
Coupled Mechanisms of Fluid Transport Across the Crust
Magmatic fluid moves up in the ductile zone through porosity waves, accumulates in high-porosity lenses, and migrates across the brittle zone in a convection pattern involving also meteoric fluid.
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 inResearch Spotlights
Crustal Motion and Strain Rates in the Southern Basin and Range Province
New research teases out variations in strain rates and explores potential earthquake hazards across the southern Basin and Range and Colorado Plateau.
Posted inEditors' Vox
A 360-degree View of Crustal Magmatic Systems
A new book presents an overview of crustal magmatic systems and explores variations within these systems through analytical, experimental, and numerical approaches.
Posted inAGU News
Susan L. Beck Receives 2020 Walter H. Bucher Medal
Susan L. Beck was awarded the 2020 Walter H. Bucher Medal at the virtual AGU Fall Meeting in December. The medal is for “original contributions to the basic knowledge of the crust and lithosphere.”
Posted inEditors' Highlights
Probing the Age of the Oldest Ocean Crust in the Pacific
A new study extends the calibration of the Mesozoic Sequence down to the Mid Jurassic with multiscale marine magnetic anomaly data, demonstrating extraordinarily high reversal frequency.