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continental crust

British  

noun

  1. geology that part of the earth's crust that underlies the continents and continental shelves

"Collins English Dictionary — Complete & Unabridged" 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

continental crust Scientific  
/ kŏn′tə-nĕntl /
  1. See under crust


Example Sentences

Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.

Isotopic geochemistry suggests the molten material came from Archean continental crust dating between 3.0 and 3.3 billion years old.

From Science Daily • Mar. 1, 2026

That evidence points to the São Francisco craton, one of the oldest and most stable regions of South America's continental crust.

From Science Daily • Mar. 1, 2026

Their combined results point to a far livelier early Earth, suggesting that widespread subduction and the growth of continental crust may have begun several hundred million years earlier than earlier theories proposed.

From Science Daily • Dec. 4, 2025

Researchers have used zircons to try to date the onset of plate tectonics and the origin of continental crust.

From Science Magazine • Apr. 30, 2024

Maybe the Sea of Flames never existed at all, maybe curses aren’t real, maybe her father is right: Earth is all magma and continental crust and ocean.

From "All the Light We Cannot See" by Anthony Doerr

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