Publication Date:
2012-01-10
Description:
The continental lithosphere contains the oldest and most stable structures on Earth, where fragments of ancient material have eluded destruction by tectonic and surface processes operating over billions of years. Although present-day erosion of these remnants is slow, a record of how they have uplifted, eroded, and cooled over Earth's history can provide insight into the physical properties of the continents and the forces operating to exhume them over geologic time. We constructed a continuous record of ancient lithosphere cooling with the use of uranium-lead (U-Pb) thermochronology on volcanically exhumed lower crustal fragments. Combining these measurements with thermal and Pb-diffusion models constrains the range of possible erosion histories. Measured U-Pb data are consistent with extremely low erosion rates persisting over time scales approaching the age of the continents themselves.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Notes: 〈/span〉Blackburn, Terrence J -- Bowring, Samuel A -- Perron, J Taylor -- Mahan, Kevin H -- Dudas, Francis O -- Barnhart, Katherine R -- New York, N.Y. -- Science. 2012 Jan 6;335(6064):73-6. doi: 10.1126/science.1213496.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Author address: 〈/span〉Earth Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA. terrence@mit.edu〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Record origin:〈/span〉 〈a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22223803" target="_blank"〉PubMed〈/a〉
Print ISSN:
0036-8075
Electronic ISSN:
1095-9203
Topics:
Biology
,
Chemistry and Pharmacology
,
Computer Science
,
Medicine
,
Natural Sciences in General
,
Physics
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