The Earth is the only known planet where plate tectonics is active, and different studies have
concluded that plate tectonics commenced at times from the early Hadean to 700 Ma. Many …

Underplating was originally proposed as the process of magma ponding at the base of the
crust and was inferred from petrologic considerations. This process not only may add high …

The strong resilience of the mineral zircon and its ability to host a wealth of isotopic
information make it the best deep-time archive of Earth's continental crust. Zircon is found in …

The record of the continental lithosphere is patchy and incomplete; no known rock is older
than 4.02 Ga, and less than 5% of the rocks preserved are older than 3 Ga. In addition, there …

Abstract Models for when and how the continental crust was formed are constrained by
estimates in the rates of crustal growth. The record of events preserved in the continental …

A total of 4344 magmatic U-Pb ages in the range 2300 to 800 Ma have been compiled from
the Great Proterozoic Accretionary Orogen along the margin of the Columbia/Nuna …

Plate tectonics is among the most important geological processes on Earth, but its
emergence and evolution remain unclear. Here we extrapolate models of present-day plate …

Many geological and geochemical changes are recorded on Earth between 3 and 2 Ga.
Among the more important of these are the following:(1) increasing proportion of basalts with …

From the scant Hadean records of the Jack Hills to Cenozoic supervolcanoes, the
continental crust provides a synoptic view deep into Earth history. However, the information …

Abstract Development of renewable energy infrastructure requires critical raw materials,
such as the rare earth elements (REEs, including scandium) and niobium, and is driving …