Earth’s “Hot Flash” Responsible for Continental Crust

Analysis of ancient zircon grains finds that many injections of continental crust occurred during a period of time when Earth’s mantle was at its hottest.

IMAGE: This cathodoluminescence image shows the internal structure of magnified zircons analyzed by laser ablation. CREDIT: Chris Kirkland

One thing we can say for certain is that Earth is an ocean world. But how did it end up with as much continental…