Secular Evolution of Continents and the Earth System

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dc.contributor.authorCawood, P.A.
dc.contributor.authorChowdhury, P.
dc.contributor.authorMulder, J.A.
dc.contributor.authorHawkesworth, C.J.
dc.contributor.authorCapitanio, F.A.
dc.contributor.authorGunawardana, P.M.
dc.contributor.authorNebel, O.
dc.date.issued2022
dc.description.abstractUnderstanding of secular evolution of the Earth system is based largely on the rock and mineral archive preserved in the continental lithosphere. Based on the frequency and range of accessible data preserved in this record, we divide the secular evolution into seven phases: (a) “Proto-Earth” (ca. 4.57–4.45 Ga); (b) “Primordial Earth” (ca. 4.45–3.80 Ga); (c) “Primitive Earth” (ca. 3.8–3.2 Ga); (d) “Juvenile Earth” (ca. 3.2–2.5 Ga); (e) “Youthful Earth” (ca. 2.5–1.8 Ga); (f) “Middle Earth” (ca. 1.8–0.8 Ga); and (g) “Contemporary Earth” (since ca. 0.8 Ga). Integrating this record with knowledge of secular cooling of the mantle and lithospheric rheology constrains the changes in the tectonic modes that operated through Earth history. Initial accretion and the Moon forming impact during the Proto-Earth phase likely resulted in a magma ocean. The solidification of this magma ocean produced the Primordial Earth lithosphere, which preserves evidence for intra-lithospheric reworking of a rigid lid, but which also likely experienced partial recycling through mantle overturn and meteorite impacts. Evidence for craton formation and stabilization from ca. 3.8 to 2.5 Ga, during the Primitive and Juvenile Earth phases, likely reflects some degree of coupling between the convecting mantle and a lithosphere initially weak enough to favor an internally deformable, squishy-lid behavior, which led to a transition to more rigid, plate like, behavior by the end of the early Earth phases. The Youthful to Contemporary phases of Earth, all occurred within a plate tectonic framework with changes between phases linked to lithospheric behavior and the supercontinent cycle.
dc.description.statementofresponsibilityPeter A. Cawood, Priyadarshi Chowdhury, Jacob A. Mulder, Chris J. Hawkesworth, Fabio A. Capitanio, Prasanna M. Gunawardana, and Oliver Nebel
dc.identifier.citationReviews of Geophysics, 2022; 60(4):e2022RG000789-1-e2022RG000789-67
dc.identifier.doi10.1029/2022RG000789
dc.identifier.issn8755-1209
dc.identifier.issn1944-9208
dc.identifier.urihttps://hdl.handle.net/2440/137671
dc.language.isoen
dc.publisherAmerican Geophysical Union (AGU)
dc.relation.granthttp://purl.org/au-research/grants/arc/FL160100168
dc.rights© 2022. The Authors. This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
dc.source.urihttps://doi.org/10.1029/2022rg000789
dc.titleSecular Evolution of Continents and the Earth System
dc.typeJournal article
pubs.publication-statusPublished

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