Scientists Find Earth’s Oldest Rocks, And They Just Changed Everything We Thought About Continents
Indian Defence Review••science
Key Points:
- A study led by Matilda Boyce from the University of Western Australia analyzed 3.7-billion-year-old anorthosite rocks, revealing that Earth's continental crust likely began forming around 3.5 billion years ago, much later than previously believed.
- Using advanced isotopic analysis of plagioclase feldspar crystals, the research team traced mantle depletion and provided new evidence for a delayed timeline of early continental growth, challenging earlier models of rapid crust formation in Earth's first billion years.
- These findings suggest Earth remained predominantly oceanic for a longer period before permanent continents emerged, impacting our understanding of Earth's surface evolution, atmospheric development, and possibly the origins of early life.
- The study also compared isotopic signatures from Australian anorthosites with
