The ancient crust of Australia is crucial for understanding the early Earth, because it tells us about how the continental crust formed and evolved. Continental crust forms the foundation of ...

As the impacts blasted up enormous volumes of material and melted the rocks around them, the mantle below produced thick ...

New crust is continually being pushed away from divergent boundaries (where sea-floor spreading occurs), increasing Earth's surface. But the Earth isn't getting any bigger. What happens ...

Cratons owe their longevity to their roots, or keels, Foster says. Cratons are much thicker than surrounding continental crust, with keels that can extend hundreds of kilometers down into the mantle.

for instance by bacterial transformation of organic material or splitting of water molecules driven by decay of radioactive elements in the Earth's continental crust. As a result, the occurrence ...

for instance by bacterial transformation of organic material or splitting of water molecules driven by decay of radioactive elements in the Earth’s continental crust. As a result, the occurrence ...

And like an eggshell, the crust has cracked and split into many different pieces called tectonic plates. These plates can be oceanic, meaning they're found mainly under the ocean, or continental ...

Continental and oceanic plates all fit together to form the outer crust of the planet. Eight major plates are named on the diagram below. Heat from the core makes magma in the mantle rise towards ...