Origin
There is little evidence of continental crust prior to 3.5 bya, and there was relatively rapid development on shield areas consisting of continental crust between 3.0 and 2.5 bya. All continental crust ultimately derives from the fractional differentiation of oceanic crust over many eons. This process has been and continues today primarily as a result of the volcanism associated with subduction.
Read more about this topic: Continental Crust
Famous quotes containing the word origin:
“The essence of morality is a questioning about morality; and the decisive move of human life is to use ceaselessly all light to look for the origin of the opposition between good and evil.”
—Georges Bataille (1897–1962)
“Though I do not believe that a plant will spring up where no seed has been, I have great faith in a seed,—a, to me, equally mysterious origin for it.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“We have got rid of the fetish of the divine right of kings, and that slavery is of divine origin and authority. But the divine right of property has taken its place. The tendency plainly is towards ... “a government of the rich, by the rich, and for the rich.””
—Rutherford Birchard Hayes (1822–1893)