In contrast, the North American craton underwent trench retreat following ... said LiveScience. These movements have been instrumental in positioning the landmasses the way they exist now.

This resulted from the movement of the NCC changing from eastwards ... ultimately leading to disintegration of the craton. To validate these findings, the scientists generated three flow models ...

The blue area is about 250 km thick and, based on new findings reported in Nature, is composed of a 3-billion-year old craton underlain by younger lithosphere deposited as ocean floor subducted ...