Geophysical, petrological, and geochemical data provide important clues about the
composition of the deep continental crust. On the basis of seismic refraction data, we divide …

The continental crust has an andesitic bulk composition, which cannot have been produced
by the basaltic magmatism that dominates sites of present-day crustal growth—at both …

The lower plate is the dominant agent in modern convergent margins characterized by
active subduction, as negatively buoyant oceanic lithosphere sinks into the asthenosphere …

Granitoids are a major component of the continental crust. They play a pivotal role in its
evolution, either by adding new material (continental growth), or by reworking older …

The continental crust is the principal record of conditions on the Earth during the past 4.4
billion years,. However, how the continental crust formed and evolved through time remains …

Differentiation of hydrous primary, mantle-derived magmas is a fundamental process to
generate evolved intermediate to SiO2-rich compositions forming the bulk of the continental …

We report the results of partial melting experiments between 8 and 32 kbar, on four natural
amphibolites representative of metamorphosed Archean tholeiite (greenstone), high …

Lithospheric delamination is the foundering of dense lithosphere into less dense
asthenosphere. The causes for this density inversion are thermal, compositional, and due to …

Both geochemical and experimental petrological research indicate that Archaean
continental crust was generated by partial melting of an Archaean tholeiite transformed into …

Ubiquitous heterogeneity in the Earth's mantle has been documented by numerous
chemical and isotopic analyses of oceanic basalts. Despite the ever-increasing amount of …