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continental crust

British

noun

geology that part of the earth's crust that underlies the continents and continental shelves

"Collins English Dictionary — Complete & Unabridged" 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

continental crust Scientific

/ kŏn′tə-nĕn′tl /

See under crust

Example Sentences

Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.

That evidence points to the São Francisco craton, one of the oldest and most stable regions of South America's continental crust.

From Science Daily • Mar. 1, 2026

To test this, the team built computer simulations that recreated how the mantle and continental crust behave when stretched by tectonic forces.

From Science Daily • Nov. 12, 2025

In a new study published in Nature Geoscience, the team found that creating long-lasting continental crust required extreme temperatures -- over 900 degrees Celsius -- in the planet's lower crust.

From Science Daily • Oct. 16, 2025

Researchers have used zircons to try to date the onset of plate tectonics and the origin of continental crust.

From Science Magazine • Apr. 30, 2024

Earth is all magma and continental crust and ocean.

From "All the Light We Cannot See" by Anthony Doerr

Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023