The world most mysterious and beautiful natural and human-made wonders, showcasing their historical, scientific and aesthetic significance. Our Earth consists of not only soil and stone, but that is a reality book. Where every page lakhs of year heard in stories. With time and environment miraculously made that beyond the thinking of humanity. Some seens are very different were reaching like steps in another world where breadth is made for mysterious and were eyes are everywhere discovering mysterious stories. That travel not only for looking but also to feelings, where every seens are making for fast heart breathing and soul fills it with Aachraj. That travel where environment self most mysterious taking care.

The list includes the ancient Baobab trees in African continent of Madagascar is the strangest in the world and mysterious trees in counting. There largest and rough body happens are very lengthy that were filled water thousands of litre. That reason in dry areas of africa and madagascar thousands of year is lives. Some Baobab trees are more than 6000 of years that is, when humans are starting of civilization, that time also already trees was stilled grown. Even when the moon was rising, these trees were still standing on the ground.

Their most strange identity takes on a different, fascinating meaning:

1. Metaphorical Identity

In the poem “The Trees” by Adrienne Rich, the strange, hidden identity of the trees is that they symbolize human beings seeking freedom and independence. They represent nature breaking free from the oppressive, confining man-made structures (like glass walls and cracked floors) to return to their rightful home in the forest.

2. In Nature

If you are referring to real-world trees, their “strange identity” usually points to unique evolutionary adaptations. For instance:

The Ghost Tree (Sterculia urens): Its unique trait is its smooth, white bark that glows in the dark, giving it a ghost-like appearance in the moonlight.

The Walking Palm (Socratea exorrhiza): Its strange identity is its tall, spindly stilt roots that lift the trunk above the ground, leading to local legends that the tree can physically “walk”.

The Baobab Tree: Known as the “upside-down tree,” its strange identity is its massively swollen trunk used to store thousands of liters of water in harsh, dry climates. Local legends say that the gods placed them upside down by mistake. These trees have large white flowers that bloom once a year. As if nature has created them as symbols of only temporary beauty. Many of the most stunning elements in nature—like cherry blossoms, morning dew, or a brilliant sunset—exist only for a brief moment, making their beauty feel incredibly precious. The baobab tree has given us the culture and long-lasting habits of this place. It is not only a symbol of the earth, but also a living witness to the planet’s millennia-old history, giving us a deeper understanding of the environment and its abusers.

Volcanic blue fire and acid lake of kawah lenin java island in Indonesia Ijen volcano complex is a group of composite volcanoes located on the border between Banyuwangi Regency and Bondowoso Regency of East Java, Indonesia. Ijen UNESCO Global Geopark, located in East Java, Indonesia, boasts with natural wonders and renowned for its volcanic landscape, unique geological formation Ijen (pronounced ee-jen), located in East Java, Indonesia, is an active volcano that is part of the Ijen UNESCO Global Geopark. Kawah Ijen: The volcano in Indonesia that holds the world’s largest acidic lake at its heart and gas emissions that produce blue flames upon contact with oxygen in Earth’s atmosphere.

Kawah Ijen is an active volcano on the island of Java with an extremely acidic crater lake and gas emissions that produce blue flames upon contact with oxygen in Earth’s atmosphere. Volcanoes: Facts, news, features and articles about geology’s fieriest features lava fountains to towering ash clouds, volcanoes produce some of the most dramatic geological events on the planet. Volcanoes are cracks in Earth’s crust that allow molten rock and hot gases to escape. 

Volcanoes are openings, or vents where lava, tephra (small rocks), and steam erupt onto the Earth’s surface. Volcanic eruptions can last days, months, or even years. Many mountains form by folding, faulting, uplift, and erosion of the Earth’s crust. Volcanic terrain, however, is built by the slow accumulation of erupted lava. The vent may be visible as a small bowl shaped depression at the summit of a cone or shield-shaped mountain. Through a series of cracks within and beneath the volcano, the vent connects to one or more linked storage areas of molten or partially molten rock (magma). This connection to fresh magma allows the volcano to erupt over and over again in the same location. In this way, the volcano grows ever larger, until it is no longer stable. Pieces of the volcano collapse as rock falls or as landslides.

How do volcanoes erupt?

What is a volcano?

Molten rock below the surface of the Earth that rises in volcanic vents is known as magma, but after it erupts from a volcano it is called lava. Magma is made of molten rock, crystals, and dissolved gas—imagine an unopened bottle of soda with grains of sand inside. The molten rock is made of the chemicals oxygen, silicon, aluminum, iron, magnesium, calcium, sodium, potassium, titanium, and manganese. After cooling, liquid magma may form crystals of various minerals until it becomes completely solid and forms an igneous or magmatic rock.

Originating many tens of miles beneath the ground, magma is lighter than surrounding solid rock. It is driven towards Earth’s surface by buoyancy, it is lighter than the surrounding rock, and by pressure from gas within it. Magma forces its way upward and may ultimately break though weak areas in the Earth’s crust. If so, an eruption begins.

Magma can be erupted in a variety of ways. Sometimes molten rock simply pours from the vent as fluid lava flows. It can also shoot violently into the air as dense clouds of rock shards (tephra) and gas. Larger fragments fall back around the vent, and clouds of tephra may move down the slope of the volcano under the force of gravity. Ash, tiny pieces of tephra the thickness of a strand of hair, may be carried by the wind only to fall to the ground many miles away. The smallest ash particles may be erupted miles into the sky and carried many times around the world by winds high in the atmosphere before they fall to the ground.

How many volcanoes are there?

USGS scientists monitor over 160 active and potentially active volcanoes in the United States. Some of these are erupting now and others could erupt at some point in the future. Most of these volcanoes are located in Alaska, a state where eruptions occur almost every year. The rest of the volcanoes are located throughout the American West, and in Hawaii. Kīlauea volcano on the Island of Hawai‘i is one of the most active volcanoes on Earth. It has been erupting almost nonstop since 1983!

There are about 1,350 potentially active volcanoes worldwide, not counting the volcanoes under the oceans. About 500 of these have erupted in the past 100 years. Many of these are located around the Pacific Ocean in what is known as the “Ring of Fire.” In the U.S., volcanoes along the west coast and in Alaska (Aleutian volcanic chain) are part of the Ring of Fire, while Yellowstone and Hawaiian volcanoes form over a “hot spot.”

What are the main types of volcanoes?

Cinder Cone

SP Crater and lava flow (dark area to right of cinder cone) in the northern part of San Francisco Volcanic Field, Arizona.

Cinder cones are the simplest type of volcano. They are made of small pieces of solid lava, called cinder, that are erupted from a vent. The ground shakes as magma rises from within the Earth. Then, a powerful blast throws molten rocks, ash, and gas into the air. The rocks cool quickly in the air and fall to the earth to break into small pieces of bubbly cinder that pile up around the vent. They accumulate as a small cinder cone that can be as high as a thousand feet above the surrounding ground. If the wind is blowing during the eruption, cinder is carried downwind before it’s deposited into an oval shape. Eruptions that form cinder cones also feed lava flows that spread outward from the eruptive vent. When you climb a cinder cone you can usually find the bowl-shaped crater marking the location of the vent. If eruptions of cinder and lava flows happen repeatedly from the same vent, the overlapping layers can form a composite volcano (stratovolcano). When looking at a map, you will find that thousands of cinder cones exist in western North America and in other volcanic areas of the world.

Composite Volcano (Stratovolcano)

Some of the Earth’s grandest mountains are composite volcanoes—sometimes called stratovolcanoes. They are usually tall with steep even sides and are made out of repeating layers of lava flows, volcanic ash, cinders, blocks, and volcanic bombs. Some composite volcanoes rise over 8,000 feet above their surroundings, but they reach much higher elevations when compared to the level of the sea (called above sea level). Ojos del Salado in Chile is the tallest composite volcano on Earth with a summit elevation (height above sea level) of 22,615 feet; the tallest in the U.S. is Mount Rainier in Washington State with a summit elevation of 14,410 feet. Some of the most famous and beautiful mountains in the world are composite volcanoes, including Mount Fuji in Japan, Mount Cotopaxi in Ecuador, Mount Shasta in California, Mount Hood in Oregon, and Mount St. Helens in Washington.

Shield Volcano

Shield-volcano Mauna Kea viewed from the northern slope of Mauna Loa (cinder cones in the foreground) shows off its broad shield shape. The bumps on its profile are large cinder cones.

Shield volcanoes are built almost entirely of fluid lava flows. Lava pours out of vents in all directions, either from the summit (top) or along two to three rift zones (fractures) that radiate out from the summit like spokes on a bicycle wheel. As lava flows overlap one another, they construct a broad, gently sloping dome shape that from far away appears similar to a warrior’s shield. Shield volcanoes build up slowly by the growth of thousands of lava flows that spread widely over great distances, and then cool as thin sheets. On Earth, some of the most massive volcanoes are shield volcanoes. In northern California and Oregon, many shield volcanoes are up to 3 or 4 miles wide and as tall as 1,500 to 2,000 feet. The Hawaiian Islands are made of a chain of shield volcanoes including Kīlauea and the world’s largest active volcano, Mauna Loa. Looking at pictures of volcanoes, you can usually identify them by shape as being a shield volcano or stratovolcano.

Lava Dome

A volcano can host many lava domes over a long period of time, so these are technically not a “volcano type” but rather an eruption phenomenon. Lava domes are technically lava flows made up of lava that is too thick to flow away from the vent. Lava squeezes out of the vent and accumulates as a giant pile over and around the vent. Some domes form pointy spines, while others appear as a giant muffin, as opening flower petals, or as steep-sided stubby flows or tongues. Lava domes often grow within craters or upon the flanks of large steep-sided composite volcanoes. Lava domes can be dangerous. They grow largely by expansion from within. As fresh magma fills the inside, the cooler and harder outer surface shatters and spills hot rock and gases down the mountainside. The circle-shaped Novarupta Dome that formed during the 1912 eruption of Katmai Volcano, Alaska, measures 800 feet across and 200 feet high. This dome was one of the last squirts of lava to emerge during a much larger and long-term eruption. The eruption at Katmai was the largest and most violent eruption ever to occur within the United States.

Volcano Watch — Submarine eruptions – volcanoes on the rise our own mental image of a volcano. For some, it may be a lofty, snow-capped peak like Mt. Rainier. For others, the horizon-dominating backbone of a volcano like Mauna Loa may come to mind. But not many of us imagine the watery edifice of one of the countless volcanoes that hide beneath the surface of the world’s oceans.

Although little is known about submarine volcanoes, or seamounts, they comprise the majority of the planet’s volcanoes. Several thousand active submarine volcanoes have been discovered, and some scientists estimate that there may be more than a million active volcanoes hidden beneath the waves. If so, then for every active volcano on dry land, there are hundreds of active volcanoes located under water.
Here in Hawai`i, we have a bit of both worlds – the volcanoes that make up the islands themselves, and Lo`ihi, the active submarine volcano southeast of the Big Island. In 100,000 years or so, Lo`ihi will poke its top above water, and a new Hawaiʻian iIsland will be born. When it does, it could be quite a sight to behold.
When volcanoes erupt in deep water, the weight of the overlying water prevents the explosive escape of volcanic gases. But as a volcano grows, and eruptions take place in shallower water, the water pressure can no longer confine the volcanic gases, thereby allowing them to escape. The presence of an unlimited supply of water also adds great quantities of steam to the eruption. If the conditions are right, the result can be explosive, with rock debris and steam blasting out of the ocean.
Earlier this month, Fukutokuoka-no-ba, a submarine volcano located about 1,125 kilometers (700 miles) southeast of Tokyo, Japan, began to erupt. Though apparently not explosive, the eruption created a steam plume that reached a height of about 1,000 meters (3,280 feet). Observation flights over the eruption site found the water strongly discolored by mud and other debris, with blocks of pumice floating on the surface.
Fukutokuoka-no-ba, the latest example of the rarely observed transition of a submarine volcano into a subaerial volcano, poses little threat to populated areas. A slightly more dangerous example of an active, near-surface submarine volcano is Kick `em Jenny, about 8 kilometers (5 miles) off the north shore of Grenada, in the Caribbean. Though its historical eruptions have been rather small, the eruptions can be expected to be more violent as the volcano grows toward the ocean’s surface. The modern cone of Kick `em Jenny is also built within a horseshoe-shaped depression left by a giant underwater landslide. Therefore, both tsunamis and explosive eruptions threaten neighboring islands.
Although Fukutokuoka-no-ba and Kick `em Jenny are good examples of active, shallow-water volcanoes, the volcanic island of Surtsey, which appeared off the southern coast of Iceland in 1963, provides a better example of what might happen when Lo`ihi emerges from the waves. The quiet growth of Surtsey from the sea floor to within a few meters of the ocean surface went largely undetected. When shallow depths were reached, however, the eruption became explosive, hurling cinders and lava bombs to heights of at least 250 meters (820 feet).
The billowing ash and steam cloud over the vent reached as high as 10 kilometers (6 miles). After several months of explosive eruptions, the growing cinder cone finally blocked seawater from reaching the vent, and the steam explosions stopped. The eruption, however, continued to produce lava fountains and flows, much like those seen here at Kīlauea, until the eruption ended three years later.
Fukutokuoka-no-ba, Kick `em Jenny, and Surtsey all illustrate an important step in an interesting and unique process. Other volcanoes will undergo the same basic process, and, eventually, Lo`ihi will have its turn. If Lo`ihi is anything like its neighbor, Kīlauea, erupting about 300,000 cubic meters (400,000 cubic yards) of lava each day, then it will certainly put on a good show when it emerges from the depths. Too bad none of us will be around to see it.

Volcano Activity Update

Eruptive activity at Pu`u `O`o continues. On clear nights, glow is visible from several vents within the crater and on the southwest side of the cone.
The PKK lava tube continues to efficiently carry lava from its source near Pu`u `O`o to the ocean. Thus, the amount of surface lava visible is very low, with only a handful of surface flows scattered from above the top of Pulama pali to the ocean. Two ocean entries, at East Lae`apuki and East Kamoamoa, were active as of July 14. The East Lae`apuki bench has suffered partial collapses three times in the last three weeks. One of these collapses took a good-sized chunk of an older bench. Access to the ocean entries and the surrounding area has been closed due to significant hazards. There are currently no easily accessible surface flows at the eruption site. If you do visit the eruption, check with the rangers for updates to this situation, and remember to carry lots of water when venturing out onto the flow field.
During the week ending July 13, four earthquakes were felt on Hawai`i Island. At 11:29 p.m. on July 10, a magnitude-2.2 micro earthquake located 8 km (5 miles) north of Mauna Kea summit occurred at a depth of 18 km (11 miles); this earthquake was felt at Volcano (was Waimea sleeping?). A magnitude-3.4 minor earthquake occurred at 11:47 p.m. that same night 5 km south of Pu`u `O`o crater at a depth of 10 km (6 miles); it was felt locally at Royal Hawaiʻian Estates and Volcano. At 10:12 p.m. on July 11, a magnitude-2.8 micro earthquake located 9 km (6 miles) east of Ka`ena Point occurred at a depth of 41 km (26 miles); it was felt at Volcano. At 5:01 a.m. on July 13, a magnitude-3.4 minor earthquake located 11 km (7 miles) south of Pa`auilo occurred at a depth of 23 km (14 miles); it was felt locally at LauPāhoehoe and Papa`aloa.
Mauna Loa is not erupting. During the week ending July 13, eleven earthquakes were recorded beneath the summit area. Four were deep and long-period in nature. Inflation continues at a slightly increased rate over the last few weeks. Volcanoes are considered active if they have erupted sometime in the past 11,700 years, a time period called the Holocene epoch. If they haven’t erupted during the Holocene, they are considered extinct. Sometimes people refer to volcanoes that haven’t erupted in a long time as “dormant,” but there’s no scientific definition of that word. It could mean a volcano that erupts regularly but is currently quiet, or it could refer to a volcano that probably won’t ever erupt again.

5 fast facts about volcanoes

• Volcanic ash is made of fragments of rocks, minerals and volcanic glass. These pieces are the size of a grain of sand or smaller.
• The lava that erupts at Hawaii’s volcanoes comes out of the ground at about 2,300 degrees Fahrenheit (1,250 degrees Celsius) — hot enough to melt gold.
• Volcanic “bombs” are chunks of semimolten lava that fly out of a volcano and solidify as they land. They’re often flung miles from the volcanic crater.
• In 1883, the explosion of the Indonesian volcano Krakatoa made the loudest sound ever recorded – 310 decibels.
• When Mount St. Helens erupted in 1980, it blew away the top 1,300 feet (400 m) of the mountain — about the height of the Empire State Building. ts can use their trunk like a snorkel in the water.

Everything you need to know about volcanoes

How do volcanoes form?

Earth’s top layer, the crust, is made of cool, hardened rock. But in some places, geological processes cause parts of the crust to melt. Or the crust can crack open enough to let melted rock from the next layer of Earth, the mantle, rise to the surface.

One place this happens is at the boundaries of tectonic plates, which are the huge pieces of crust that fit together like puzzle pieces and cover the surface of the planet. At places where two tectonic plates are pulling away from each other, magma — hot, molten rock — can rise from the mantle to the surface, forming volcanoes.

Volcanoes can also form where plates crash into each other. 

What is a subduction zone?

Subduction Zones

Introduction

Where tectonic plates collide, enormous geologic forces are unleashed. Earthquakes strike, volcanoes erupt, and mountains rise. Although scientists are well aware of the power of collision, they are still seeking to understand the processes involved. Because of their grand scale and great depth, plate movements are often difficult to study, especially when they occur under the sea.

One important tectonic process that occurs only beneath the ocean is called subduction. The results of subduction are dramatic—the most visible example is the “Ring of Fire”, a bright arc of active volcanoes that outlines the Pacific Ocean.

Lesson

Subduction occurs when two plates collide at a convergent boundary, and one plate is driven beneath the other, back into the Earth’s interior. Not all convergence leads to subduction. Continental rocks are too buoyant to be forced downward, so when continents collide, they crumple but stay at the surface. Only oceanic plates, which are topped with basalt, are dense enough to sink into the mantle. As a result, only oceanic plates are subducted.

When an oceanic plate collides with a continental plate, the denser oceanic plate is bent downward and slides under the edge of the continent. A trench forms on the seafloor above the bend. Trenches are the deepest places on the surface of the earth, dropping off as much as 10 kilometers below the rest of the seafloor.

The leading edge of the continent is buckled and compressed by the force of continuing impact. A folded mountain belt rises parallel to the plate boundary, a belt with deep roots that extend down into the upper mantle. As the mountains rise, they shed enormous amounts of rocky debris, which rolls off the continent and into the trench. This is joined by seafloor mud and ooze scraped off the descending plate creating a thick organic-rich sediment wedge.

Far beneath the mountains, the descending plate has carried seawater down with it. As the plate heats up from friction and from exposure to the hot mantle, the water is expelled. The presence of water lowers the melting point of the surrounding rocks and magma begins to form. The magma rises up into the plate above melting and incorporating bits of the continent and becoming more and more silica-rich. Most of the magma cools and solidifies within the continent forming huge granite masses called plutons.

Some magma eventually reaches the surface and erupts. A volcanic mountain chain grows inland of the plate boundary—a string of tall conical peaks running parallel with the trench offshore. As the continental margin crumples as magma pushes into volcanoes, and as the seafloor is driven back into the mantle, both plates are shaken by earthquakes again and again. The eventual fate of the oceanic plate is unclear. Some studies suggest it melts away into the upper mantle, while others indicate it sinks nearly whole all the way down to the core.

Subduction also occurs where two oceanic plates converge, with many of the same results. When collision begins, the denser plate is forced downward. Because oceanic crust becomes denser with age, the plate that has the oldest rock on its leading edge is the one that is subducted.

Above the rim of the descending slab, a deep trench forms, and sediments begin to accumulate within it. Magma is generated above the sinking plate and rises. Because the over-riding oceanic plate is relatively thin, the magma burns through it quickly and lavas soon pour out onto the sea bottom. A string of undersea volcanoes begins to rise and some eventually grows above sea level to form a volcanic island arc. Frequent earthquakes rumble through the islands and all along the subducting plate as well.

Animals—such as mussels, crabs and shrimp—flock to undersea hot springs that dot the feet of the volcanoes. Life thrives in the warm mineral-rich water rising from the hot crust.

Global Impact

The geologic activity at subduction zones is enormously beneficial to all mankind. Dry land on Earth exists only because continents are born and kept above sea level by the volcanism and mountain building that occurs at subduction zones.

Many important natural resources are derived from subduction processes. Oil and natural gas reserves, fresh, highly fertile soils, and gold, silver, uranium, and diamonds are all formed at convergent plate boundaries.

However, the beauty and abundance created by subduction comes at a high price. Powerful earthquakes and violent, unpredictable volcanic eruptions cause great destruction and death near convergent boundaries. Underwater earth movements and explosions trigger enormous sea waves, called tsunamis, which travel across entire oceans to crash upon the distant shores of unsuspecting lands.

Occasionally, volcanoes and volcanic islands erupt cataclysmically, essentially blowing themselves sky high and pumping great volumes of gas and ash into the upper layers of the atmosphere. Swept around the planet by the jet stream, the volcanic debris blocks incoming sunlight, causes global cooling, and can lead to widespread crop failure and famine.

Scientific knowledge of subduction is only a few decades old and still incomplete. Geologists continue to explore subduction zones, hoping that greater understanding of their complex processes will lead to methods of predicting and minimizing the dangers they pose.

Additional Information not included in the Presentation

The geologic activity at subduction zones is enormously beneficial to all mankind. Dry land exists only because of subduction. Continents are born from the destruction of oceanic crust. The magma produced at subduction zones hardens into granite, the bedrock of all the continents.

Once created, continents keep above sea level through further subduction. Without the volcanism and mountain building that occurs at convergent boundaries, weathering would soon wear the Earth’s surface as flat as a smooth blue marble.

Important natural resources are derived from subduction processes. Oil and natural gas develops in the thick, highly organic sediments that accumulate around the plate boundary. Volcanic rocks release nutrients as they weather forming some of the most fertile soils on Earth. The hydrothermal fluids that accompany rising magma inject valuable minerals into surface rocks, including gold, silver, and diamonds.

The beauty and abundance created by subduction, however, comes at a high price. Powerful earthquakes cause great destruction and death near convergent boundaries. The strongest measured earthquake ever to strike the United States, the 1964 Alaska quake, was caused by subduction. With a Richter magnitude of 8.3, shaking lasted 4 minutes killing hundreds and leveling towns even in a very sparsely populated state. The volcanoes fueled by subduction magmas are unpredictable and prone to explode with great violence and little warning. The Pacific Ocean basin is outlined with such volcanoes—a “Ring of Fire” that threatens millions.

Those who live near a subducting plate generally bear the brunt of its power with some effects having a very long reach. When earthquakes, eruptions, or the landslides they can trigger occur near or under the ocean, enormous waves called tsunamis are set off. Sometimes known as tidal waves, tsunamis travel across entire oceans to crash upon the distant shores of unsuspecting lands. In 1883 the eruption of the Indonesian island of Krakatoa generated a 135-foot wave that killed over 30,000 people on the islands of Java and Sumatra.

Occasionally, volcanoes and volcanic islands erupt cataclysmically, essentially blowing themselves sky high and pumping great volumes of gas and ash into the upper layers of the atmosphere. Swept around the planet by the jet stream, the volcanic debris blocks incoming sunlight, and causes global cooling.

The island arc volcano of Tambora exploded in 1815 in the largest eruption in recorded human history. As a result, 1816 was known as “the year without a summer” in Europe and North America. Snow fell throughout the summer, crops failed, and 80,000 people starved. This tectonic process can produce some of the planet’s most powerful earthquakes, tsunamis and volcanoes.

What is Tectonic Shift?

Tectonic shift is the movement of the plates that make up Earth’s crust.

What is plate tectonics?

From the deepest ocean trench to the tallest mountain, plate tectonics explains the features and movement of Earth’s surface in the present and the past.

Continental Drift: The groundbreaking theory of moving continents drift theory introduced the idea of moving continents. Continental drift was a revolutionary theory explaining that continents shift position on Earth’s surface. The theory was proposed by geophysicist and meteorologist Alfred Wegener in 1912, but was rejected by mainstream science at the time. Wegener didn’t have an explanation for how continents could move around the planet, but researchers do now: Plate tectonics.

We now think that Earth’s outer shell is divided into large slabs of solid rock, called “plates,” that glide over Earth’s mantle, the rocky middle layer above Earth’s core. Earth’s solid outer layer, which includes the crust and the uppermost mantle, is called the lithosphere. 

Lithospheric thickness records tectonic evolution by controlling metamorphic conditions  the outermost solid layer of our planet, preserves a progressively more fragmentary record of geological events and processes from Earth’s history the further back in time one looks. Thus, the evolution of lithospheric thickness and its cascading impacts in Earth’s tectonic system are presently unknown. Here, we track the lithospheric thickness history using machine learning based on global lithogeochemical data of basalt. Our results demonstrate that four marked lithospheric thinning events occurred during the Paleoarchean, early Paleoproterozoic, Neoproterozoic, and Phanerozoic with intermediate thickening scenarios. These events respectively correspond to supercontinent/supercraton breakup and assembly periods. Causality investigation further indicates that crustal metamorphic and deformation styles are the feedback of lithospheric thickness. Cross-correlation between lithospheric thickness and metamorphic thermal gradients records the transition from intraoceanic subduction systems to continental margin and intraoceanic in the Paleoarchean and Mesoarchean and a progressive emergence of large thick continents that allow supercontinent growth, which promoted assembly of the first supercontinent during the Neoarchean.

How Earth evolved from its initial hot accretion to the present-day active-lid plate tectonic/mantle convection system is poorly known and hotly debated. Some models suggest that early Earth had a stagnant lid, with no plate tectonics but with numerous plumes pumping magmas from the deep onto a thick crust that dripped back into the interior. Other models suggest that the early hot magma ocean evolved quickly into a primitive form of plate tectonics with small shallow subduction systems on a mafic-dominated lithosphere, which gradually formed felsic crusts and continents, and that the stagnant lid regime is still billions of years in the future.

Asthenospheric cooling, which controlled the density differences between the oceanic lithosphere and underlying asthenosphere, has been considered the critical factor that induced and maintained the plate tectonics system. Asthenospheric temperature reflects the balance between heat gain by natural radioactive decay of Earth’s interior and conductive heating at the core-mantle boundary and heat loss by convective and conductive cooling through Earth’s lithosphere. However, the asthenospheric temperature has changed markedly throughout Earth’s history. Given the smooth secular decay of primordial accretional heat, this marked change of asthenospheric temperature is likely caused by heat release processes controlled by the lithosphere. However, on the other hand, asthenospheric temperature also affects the lithospheric thickness by controlling the partial melting of the upper mantle because the temperature is the most important factor controlling lithospheric rheology. Changes in the lithospheric thickness, induced, for instance, by tectonic processes, affect not only the thermal state of the crust but also the heat emissions from Earth’s interior, thus retroactively affecting the temperature of the upper mantle in a feedback mechanism, influencing tectonic regime. Therefore, as the rigid outer layer of Earth, the lithosphere records interactions with the underlying asthenospheric mantle, becoming the long-term archive of Earth’s evolution.

Because of the temperature dependence of silicate rheology, rapid changes in mantle temperature are strongly inhibited. Thus, most Earth scientists assume that the global lithosphere volume has grown slowly but steadily over Earth’s history as the result of the secular slow cooling of the asthenosphere since the Archaean. Others suggest that most of the continental crust volume, as an important part of lithosphere, formed very early in the Hadean and has been constantly recycled since. Recently, Tang et al used Eu anomalies in detrital zircons as a crustal thickness proxy and suggested that the mean thickness of continental crust changed quasi-sinusoidally over Earth’s history. Even some cratons, which were thought to have remained stable over billions of years, have experienced substantial lithospheric thinning and even destruction, for example, the North China, Dharwar, Amazonian, São Francisco, and North Siberian Cratons. Therefore, the mean thickness of global lithosphere is not carved in stone and does not necessarily remain thick once thickened by tectonic or magmatic processes. This concept is supported by recent numerical models and isotopic data showing that continents can be recycled to the deep mantle and then return to relaminate the bases of other lithospheric plate in massive regional relamination events, complicating ideas of slow lithospheric and crustal growth through time. Therefore, as the interaction product of multilayers of Earth, the lithosphere continues to emerge, rework, and disappear, and its thickness should markedly change and record the evolution of tectonic regimes during Earth’s history.

Mantle-derived xenoliths as probes of Earth’s deep interior can directly reveal the compositional and thermal evolution of the lithosphere. However, deciphering the evolution of lithospheric thickness is challenged by the difficulties in accessing rock records directly from the deep crust and mantle . Basalts and basaltic rocks are the most widespread and abundant igneous rocks on Earth. Since basalts are solidified melts ultimately derived from the asthenosphere, they are expected to contain information about the mantle conditions from which they were derived and thus have been used to infer the geophysical and geochemical heterogeneity of the mantle source. However, the incompatible trace elements of the basaltic primary melts are highly sensitive to the composition of the mantle source and re-equilibration with the surrounding mantle during their ascent. Experimental petrology has shown that the oxides of the basalt primary melts in all tectonic settings on Earth are sensitive to the pressure of melting and less sensitive to variations in mantle compositions, hence being a good choice to estimate the lithosphere thickness. Clinopyroxene barometry results for megacrysts in basalts, e.g., the Cenozoic alkali basalts from eastern continental China, also indicate that the lithospheric thickness has substantial controls on the oxides compositional variations of these basalts. This makes it possible to estimate the lithospheric thickness using the oxides of basalts. It further features the iconic white and blue architecture of Santorini in Greece, the icy landscape of Los Glaciers Park in Argentina and the historically significant Godafoss waterfall in Iceland. Finally, it highlights the cosmic remnants at Barringer Crater in the USA and the enduring engineering mysterious of the great Pyramids of Giza in Egypt.