Exposed continents are one of Earth's major characteristics. Recent studies on ancient ocean volume and exposed landmasses suggest, however, that early Earth was possibly a water world, where any significant landmass was unlikely to have risen above sea level. On modern Earth, the thickness of continental crust seems to be controlled by sea level and the buoyancy of continental crust. Simply applying this concept to the Archean would not explain the absence of exposed continents, and we suggest that a third element that is currently insignificant was important during early Earth: the strength of continental upper crust. Based on the pressure imbalance expected at continent-ocean boundaries, we quantified the conditions under which rock strength controls the thickness of continental crust. With the level of radiogenic heat production expected for early Earth, continents may have been too weak to have maintained their thickness against a deep ocean.

中文翻译：

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是什么控制了太古代大陆地壳的厚度？

裸露的大陆是地球的主要特征之一。然而，最近对古代海洋体积和裸露陆地的研究表明，早期地球可能是一个水世界，任何重要的陆地都不太可能升到海平面以上。在现代地球上，大陆地壳的厚度似乎受海平面和大陆地壳的浮力控制。简单地将这个概念应用于太古宙并不能解释没有暴露大陆的原因，我们认为目前微不足道的第三个元素在早期地球期间很重要：大陆上地壳的强度。基于大陆-海洋边界预期的压力不平衡，我们量化了岩石强度控制大陆地壳厚度的条件。