One of the most contentious areas of Earth Science today is when, or whether or not modern-
style plate tectonics was in operation in the Archean Eon. In this review we present evidence …

We argue that the production of mantle-derived or juvenile continental crust during the
accretionary history of the Central Asian Orogenic Belt (CAOB) has been grossly …

About four billion years ago, Earth's outer layer is thought to have been composed mostly of
a 25-to 50-km-thick basaltic crust that differentiated to form the oldest stable continental …

Earth's mantle has a two-layered structure, with the upper and lower mantle domains
separated by a seismic discontinuity at about 660 km (refs.,). The extent of mass transfer …

The generation, preservation and destruction of continental crust on Earth is of wide interest
in understanding the formation of continents, cratons and supercontinents as well as related …

The heat transport and lithospheric dynamics of early Earth are currently explained by plate
tectonic and vertical tectonic models, but these do not offer a global synthesis consistent with …

Abstract The Dharwar Craton is a composite Archean cratonic collage that preserves
important records of crustal evolution on the early Earth. Here we present results from a …

Volcanic and intrusive rocks with geochemical signatures typical of modern continental or
oceanic arcs are uncommon in the Archaean and the archetypal Archaean granite …

An outstanding feature of the Archaean Eon is that it was a time of major production and
preservation of continental lithosphere. Here I review the geological, geochemical and basic …

Eoarchean [3.6 to 4.0 billion years ago (Ga)] tonalite-trondhjemite-granodiorite (TTG) is the
major component of Earth's oldest remnant continental crust, thereby holding the key to …