Past behind Earth’s Continents

A recent study related to rocks that were formed billions of years ago has lend some fresh insights into how Earth's plate tectonics, or the movements of large pieces of Earth's outer shells has evolved over the planet's 4.56-billion-years history.
A report of these findings got published on August 7 in Nature has also revealed that the contrary to some previous studies that speak about plate tectonics has also operated throughout Earth's history or further that it has emerged only 0.7 billion years ago, plate tectonics actually have evolved over the last 2.5 billion years’ time period. This new timeline also impacts researchers' models for understanding how our Earth has changed.
Robert Holder who is a Postdoctoral Fellow in the Earth and Planetary Sciences at Johns Hopkins University and also the paper's first author has said that one of the key ways of understanding how our Earth has evolved for becoming the planet that all of us know is plate tectonics. Plate tectonics dictates about how continents drift apart and come back all together and helps explaining where volcanoes and earthquakes takes place, predicts cycles of erosion and also ocean circulation, and how life on our planet Earth has evolved.
In a bid of resolving the mystery of how and when these plate tectonics emerged on Earth, Holder and the research team has examined a global compilation of metamorphic rocks that were formed over the past 3 billion years at 564 sites.

By: Prerana Sharma
Content: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/08/190807131926.htm