Zircon crystals from ancient rocks in Greenland suggest the movement of plate tectonics to have occurred 3.2 billion years ago.
The evidence infers that significant volumes of crust began to be stabilised as continents only after that time.
Researchers will try to verify and extend these findings by studying rocks from the Pilbara, which span the same key time period (2.85 to 3.9 billion years old) and the aim is to identify the triggers for plate tectonics.
Read more at The University of Western Australia