The team's calculations showed the protocrust—Earth's earliest crust formed during the Hadean eon (4.5–4.0 billion years ago)—would naturally develop the same chemical signatures found in ...

Geologists have made certain assumptions about how the crust making up our planet's earliest surface formed, but a new study has found that Earth's very first protocrust was surprisingly similar to ...

Credit: Morris McLennan, Macquarie University New research suggests that Earth’s first crust, formed over 4.5 billion years ago, already carried the chemical traits we associate with modern continents ...

Modern continental rocks carry chemical signatures from the very start of our planet's history, challenging current theories about plate tectonics. Researchers have made a new discovery that ...

In a new paper published in Nature today, colleagues and I reveal secrets of Earth’s crust 4.5 billion years ago. In the process, we also provide a new way to approach one of the biggest ...

Continental clues: Modern continental rocks carry chemical signatures from the very start of our planet's history, challenging current theories about plate tectonics. Credit: Morris McLennan ...

A recent study has overturned a foundational assumption about Earth’s early geological evolution by showing that the planet’s very first crust, formed around 4.5 billion years ago, already exhibited ...

Intimately connected to the development of life Earth is roughly 4.5 billion years old. Some scientists argue that in its early form, the planet lacked plate tectonics and may have instead been ...