The seemingly stable regions of the Earth's continental plates -- the so-called stable cratons -- have suffered repetitive deformation below their crust since their formation in the remote past, ...

Dec. 2 (UPI) --Earth's earliest continents were fragile and destruction-prone, according to a new study published Wednesday in the journal Nature. Earth formed roughly 4.5 billion years ago, but the ...

These ancient metamorphic rocks called gneisses, found on the Arctic Coast, represent the roots of the continents now exposed at the surface. The scientists said sedimentary rocks interlayered in ...

Scientists recently published new ideas about why Earth’s toughest, oldest continents persist. These continents, known as cratons, have been on earth for more than two billion years. Andrew Zuza, an ...