Geologists have made certain assumptions about how the crust making up ... siderophile elements in the model – elements attracted to iron, such as the iron in Earth's core as it took shape.

The new model demonstrated that Earth’s early crust fractured, with portions thickening into the precursors of continents while the molten magma between these fragments generated crust ...

Water from both volcanic rocks and deep mantle melted Earth's crust 1.6 billion years ago. This long-lasting melting formed ...

By Adam Nossiter Xavier Le Pichon, a French geophysicist whose pioneering model of the earth’s tectonic plates helped revolutionize how scientists understand movements of the earth’s crust ...

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 enduring ...

The oldest crust on Earth, known to be unchanging, is actually being altered in real time. The North American continent is ...

Earth's crust today has a surprisingly similar composition to the planet's first outer shell, or "protocrust," new research finds. This early rocky shell featured chemical signatures previously ...

before pulling it down into the Earth's mantle. This phenomenon is gradually stripping away material from the bottom of the continent's crust. Using a high-resolution seismic technique called full ...

journeys into the planet’s crust to hunt for signs of life. “You get into a small truck or vehicle and go down a long, winding roadway that corkscrews down into the Earth,” she tells The Scientist. By ...