New study challenges conventional view of Earth's continental history and stability.

New research challenges the conventional view of the Earth's continental history and stability. The study shows that the seemingly stable regions of the Earth's continental plates, known as cratons, have suffered repetitive deformation below their crust since their formation. The study hypothesizes that the lower portion of the mantle keel, which is dense, tends to repeatedly peel away from the lithosphere above when mantle upwellings initiate supercontinent breakup. This deformation history is expressed in some of the more puzzling geophysical properties observed in the lithosphere.