The evolving continental crust: contributions from the mineral archive.

Emilie Bruand

Delineating the evolution of the Earth’s dynamics and the interactions between the different silicate reservoirs (crust, mantle) is key to understanding planetary differentiation and the conditions of surface habitability. Today, plate tectonic processes play a major role in creating and destroying the Earth’s crust. For this reason, the Earth is unique in the solar system because such global dynamics are absent on other planets. Reconstructing the long-term evolution of the Earth is, however, extremely difficult since the Hadean record is essentially missing and most Archean rocks have experienced reworking and overprinting of their original signatures.

Precious information is enclosed in several tiny accessory minerals found in a large variety of rocks and these are particularly resistant to post-magmatic disturbance. The course will focus on new advances in the field petrology and geochemistry, crustal evolution, and the nature of the first continents.