Cratonization, lower crust and continental lithosphere

This paper is titled as Cratonization, lower crust and continental lithosphere and emphasizes a concept that the formation of the continental lithosphere is a final result of continental growth and stabilization. The initial generation of primitive continental crust is as early as in the Hadean, but the formation of global lithosphere is much later. Continental nucleus or micro-blocks are not equal to lithosphere. Plate tectonics deals with tectonic movements on the lithosphere scale. Cratonization is a key geological process to form stable continental masses with a considerable scale. This causes the continental crust to divide into the stable lower crust and upper crust, and also crust-mantle coupling. The Precambrian global cratonization and formation of supercraton in the world is an unrepeated event in the history of the Earth's formation and evolution. It is possible that the first global lithosphere formed during Neoarchean cratonization. After that, the lithosphere constants adjustment, stability and evolution more than one stage, until the modern situation of the lithosphere became enough to bear the burden of plate tectonics.

Automated summary

The paper emphasizes that the formation of continental lithosphere is the result of continental growth and stabilization, with the continental crust dividing into lower and upper crust, undergoing multiple stages of adjustments, stability and evolution until it becomes capable of bearing the burden of plate tectonics.