EARTH’S FIRST LANDMASS

Context

• A new study has challenged the widely accepted view that the continents rose from the oceans about 2.5 billion years ago.

About

• It suggests this happened 700 million years earlier — about 3.2 billion years ago — and that the earliest continental landmass to emerge may have been Jharkhand’s Singhbhum region.
• The study, by researchers from India, Australia and the US, has been published in the journal PNAS.
• Scientists have found sandstones in Singhbhum with geological signatures of ancient river channels, tidal plains and beaches over 3.2 billion years old, representing the earliest crust exposed to air.
• The researchers studied the granites that form the continental crust of Singhbhum region.

https://indianexpress.com/article/explained/singhbhum-earth-first-landmass-study-7618871/