Conditioned duality of the Earth system: Geochemical tracing of the supercontinent cycle through Earth history

Pulses of rapid continental growth that accompanied supercontinent assembly led to crustal oversteps - which can be considered as periods when too much crust had formed relative to the thermal state of the mantle at that time. When combined with the anomalous mantle cooling that accompanied these pulses of rapid crust formation, we postulate that supercontinent assembly led to a stepwise increase in plate size via changes in tessellation during supercontinent dispersal.