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Research suggests Earth's oldest continental crust is disintegrating

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2024-10-09 10:00:05

This article has been reviewed according to Science X's editorial process and policies. Editors have highlighted the following attributes while ensuring the content's credibility:

Earth's continental configurations have changed dramatically over its billions of years' history, transforming not only their positions across the planet, but also their topography as expansion and contraction of the crust made a mark on the landscape. Some areas of continental crust have maintained long-term stability from the beginning of Earth's history, with little destruction by tectonic events or mantle convection, known as cratons.

Recent research, published in Nature Geoscience, has considered the mechanisms by which these cratons may have deformed, a process termed decratonization.

While subduction (when a denser tectonic plate is forced beneath the other into the underlying mantle where it melts) and deep mantle plumes (when a segment of the mantle rises to the surface due to its buoyancy and thermally erodes the crust) have been proposed as possible causes, the mechanisms driving the deformation and eventual destruction of Earth's cratons remain elusive.