Record of emergent continental crust approximately 3.5 billion years ago in the Pilbara craton of Australia

The oldest greenstone successions with angular unconformity indicating an ancient erosion surface were newly discovered to be under the rocks of 3.46-Gyr Warrawoona Group in the Pilbara craton of Australia. This discovery supports the tectonic evolutionary models that believe during the first billion years of Earth's history, the early Archaeon period, considerable volumes of continental crust were already present The unconformity dates to between 3.47 and 3.46 Gyr and those greenstones must have been on an already rigid, buoyant and cool crust.