continental crust

British

noun

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-nĕn′tl /

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

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

While that may sound modest, it equals about two-thirds of the average heat escaping through Earth's continental crust.

From Science Daily • Nov. 9, 2025

In a new study published in Nature Geoscience, the team found that creating long-lasting continental crust required extreme temperatures -- over 900 degrees Celsius -- in the planet's lower crust.

From Science Daily • Oct. 16, 2025

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

Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023