An international study team discovered that the original continents were unstable and were recycled in the Earth's interior.
The study was published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences today (PNAS),
"The rocks at the cores of the continents, known as cratons," say scientists, "are more than three billion years old."
They developed in the early Earth and hold the key to understanding how continents and the planet evolved over time.
The researchers simulated the evolution of the Earth's first billion years using high-performance computational modelling.
They discovered that the Earth's earliest continents were unstable and recycled in the mantle.
Once in the mantle, the early continental chunks were melted, churned, and mingled until they were gone.
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