Earth’s plate tectonics traced back to ‘tipping point’ 3.2 billion years ago

Earth’s floor is ever-changing, with tectonic plates grinding and shifting, constructing mountain ranges, pulling aside sea flooring and inflicting dramatic earthquakes. 

Now, new analysis provides to the rising physique of proof that these dynamics began 3.2 billion years in the past. Whereas there may be controversy inside the geoscience group about precisely when Earth turned greater than only a blob of sizzling, undifferentiated rock, the brand new examine means that this transition occurred about 1.3 billion years after the planet shaped.