This graphic shows the thickness (in kilometers) of the North American lithosphere. The blue area is about 250 km thick and, based on new findings reported in Nature, is composed of a 3-billion ...

The layers can also be categorized into the rigid outer lithosphere (which includes the crust and top portion of the mantle and makes up Earth's tectonic plates) and the athenosphere, the portion ...

The processes that form continental crust from the denser basaltic rocks of the upper mantle may make the lower lithosphere denser ... range revealed a distinct layer in the mantle, which grows ...