Abstract
AbstractAge frequency distributions of various rock types now exposed at Earth's surface primarily reflect characteristic crustal depths at which they originate and the cumulative influence of vertical tectonic movements that displace them. Abundances of mid- to upper-crustal lithosomes increase rapidly to some modal age and then gradually decrease with increasing age. Paucity of exposures younger than the modal age reflects an intrinsic interval of geologic time needed for tectonic movements to exhume rock units, while increasing rarity of exposures older than the modal age reflects the overall dispersion (uplift and erosion, subsidence and burial) from initial lithosome positions relative to Earth's surface. We develop a random-walk model that describes the geologic cycling of crustal rock as a tectonically driven diffusive system because, at a globally averaged spatial and temporal scale, tectonic subsidence/burial and uplift/erosion are essentially random processes. From this, we produce solutions to ...
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