Brittle crushing of iron-rich natural rocks is demonstrated to produce neutron emission, sometimes orders of magnitude larger than the environmental background. Chemical composition changes and a global ponderal equivalence, respecting atomic weight and atomic number balances, are observed. Phonons and/or plasmons induced by brittle crushing, if sufficiently energetic and resonant with the atomic lattice, may split the nucleus into different fragments and neutrons (disintegration). It is relevant to emphasize how the Earth’s crust evolution from basaltic to sialic (or granitic) can be consistently explained by these experimental data and theoretical assumptions when applied to tectonics.