Formation of an Archaean continent
Abstract
About 30 percent of the earth is covered by continents, but only about 10 small kernels of these continents - known as Archaean cratons - are continental fragments formed before 2.5 Gyr ago. The Kaapvaal craton of South Africa, which formed and stabilized between 3.7 and 2.7 Gyr ago, is one of the oldest reasonably sized examples of these continental fragments. It consists of a mosaic of subdomains that have been welded together by processes similar to those of modern-day polate tectonics. The earliest subdomains may have owed their origin to the onset of efficient recycling from the earth's hydrosphere into the mantle.
- Publication:
-
Nature
- Pub Date:
- June 1992
- DOI:
- 10.1038/357553a0
- Bibcode:
- 1992Natur.357..553D
- Keywords:
-
- Continents;
- Cratons;
- Geochronology;
- Planetary Evolution;
- Tectonics;
- Africa;
- Earth Mantle;
- Earth Planetary Structure;
- Lithosphere;
- Subduction (Geology);
- Geophysics;
- CONTINENTS;
- CRATONS;
- GEOCHRONOLOGY;
- PLANETARY EVOLUTION;
- TECTONICS;
- AFRICA;
- EARTH MANTLE;
- EARTH PLANETARY STRUCTURE;
- LITHOSPHERE;
- SUBDUCTION (GEOLOGY)