Exhibits
Mantle rock and continental crust
Peridotite is a rock that represents the Earth's upper mantle, and granite represents the upper continental crust. The Earth's surface is covered by more than a dozen hard structures called plates, which move and subduct beneath each other, and new plates are created by magma activity on the ocean floor. This dynamic activity of the Earth is known as plate tectonics.
Although the Earth has been dynamically changing, the continents do not sink into the Earth's interior because they are less dense (lighter) than the mantle. Therefore, in some parts of the continents, we can see more than 4 billion years of the Earth's history.
Responsibility for wording of the article
Shogo Tachibana, Professor, Earth and Planetary Physics/Earth and Planetary Environmental Science [2022]