SAT Question d696eafa: Command Of Evidence answer and explanation

Choice D is the best answer because it presents a finding that, if true, would most directly support the researchers’ conclusion that the transition from a stagnant lid regime to a tectonic plate regime occurred around 3.2 billion years ago. The text explains that early in Earth’s history, Earth exhibited a stagnant lid regime in which there’s no interaction between the lithosphere and the underlying mantle. The text further explains that, by contrast, once Earth began to exhibit a tectonic plate regime, its lithospheric and mantle material began to mix. If mantle-derived rocks younger than 3.2 billion years contain material not found in older mantle-derived rocks, that material must have originated somewhere other than the mantle. And if this material is found in both older and contemporaneous lithospheric rocks, that would imply that the lithosphere was able to mix with mantle material beginning around 3.2 billion years ago, as the researchers concluded.