The planet earth may have been evolved by the LIFE on it. That ancient microbes provided the chemical energy to create the Earth’s continents in which life helps create the conditions it needs to survive, is the idea. This is concluded by a nod to the Gaia hypothesis.
Why did the Earth’s continental crust appear when it did? The theory would surely solve the puzzle and explain the presence of granite, a substance not found anywhere else in our solar system.
Minik Rosing of the Geological Museum and the Nordic Center for Earth Evolution at the University of Copenhagen, Denmark says, “The key point is that melting of basalt makes basalt again, while the melting of weathered basalt produces a small amount of granite… Life might, in the end, be responsible for the presence of continents on Earth.”
Via: New Scientist