The formation and preservation of cratons—the oldest parts of the continents, comprising
over 60 per cent of the continental landmass—remains an enduring problem. Key to craton …

Continents, especially their Archean cores, are underlain by thick thermal boundary layers
that have been largely isolated from the convecting mantle over billion-year timescales, far …

Scientific theories of how subduction and plate tectonics began on Earth—and what the
tectonic structure of Earth was before this—remain enigmatic and contentious …

Sustainable development and the transition to a clean-energy economy drives ever-
increasing demand for base metals, substantially outstrip** the discovery rate of new …

We present a new global thermochemical model of the lithosphere and underlying upper
mantle constrained by state of the art seismic waveform inversion, satellite gravity (geoid …

Cratons are Earth's ancient continental land masses that remain stable for billions of years.
The mantle roots of cratons are renowned as being long-lived, stable features of Earth's …

We propose a continental lithosphere heat production model based on the petrology of crust
and mantle, heat production measurements of surface and xenolith samples, and tectono …

Subduction drives plate tectonics and builds continental crust, and as such is one of the
most important processes for sha** the present-day Earth. Here we review both theory …

Surface wave tomography, using the fundamental Rayleigh wave velocities and those of
higher modes between 1 and 4 and periods between 50 and 160 s, is used to image …

Seismological models of upper-mantle structure are providing new constraints on the
physical and chemical properties that differentiate the lithosphere from the asthenosphere. A …