Continental and Oceanic Differentiation

Oceanic and Terrestrial Sources of Continental Precipitation

[1] The most important sources of atmospheric moisture at the global scale are herein identified, both oceanic and terrestrial, and a characterization is made of how continental regions are influenced by water from different moisture source regions. The methods used to establish source-sink relationships of atmospheric water vapor are reviewed, and the advantages and caveats associated with eac...

Chemical differentiation of the Earth: the relationship between mantle, continental crust, and oceanic crust

The average chemical compositions of the continental crust and the oceanic crust (represented by MORB), normalized to primitive mantle values and plotted as functions of the apparent bulk partition coefficient of each element, form surprisingly simple, complementary concentration patterns. In the continental crust, the maximum concentrations are on the order of 50 to 100 times the primitive-man...

Continental crust generated in oceanic arcs

Thin oceanic crust is formed by decompression melting of the upper mantle at mid-ocean ridges, but the origin of the thick and buoyant continental crust is enigmatic. Juvenile continental crust may form from magmas erupted above intraoceanic subduction zones, where oceanic lithosphere subducts beneath other oceanic lithosphere. However, it is unclear why the subduction of dominantly basaltic oc...

Oceanic- and continental-type metamorphic terranes: Occurrence and exhumation mechanisms

New Estimates of Continental Discharge and Oceanic Freshwater Transport

New estimates of freshwater discharge from continents were derived using stream-flow records from the world's largest 921 rivers, supplemented with estimates of discharge from unmonitored areas based on the ratios of runoff and drainage area between the unmonitored and monitored regions. The farthest downstream river-flow data were extrapolated to the river mouth using river transport model sim...