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 ...

Scientists with a new theory about how Earth’s early continents formed predicted where a superold impact crater should ...

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 ...

Beyond the outer core lies the mantle, a 1,800-mile-thick layer of viscous molten rock on which Earth's outermost layer, the crust, rests. On land, the continental crust is an average of 19 miles ...

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 ...