Weathering by rainfall broke up and altered the rocks. Erosion produced sediments. The end result of such processes was a continental land mass, which would have grown over time. The most popular theory limits the growth of continents to the first two billion years of the Earth. In much of the detective work behind studies of the early Earth, evidence from isotopic ratios has been used.
Isotopes are different forms of the same element, differing only by a small nuclear mass difference.
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