Researchers used small zircon crystals to unlock information about magmas and plate tectonic activity in early Earth. The research provides chemical evidence that plate tectonics was most likely ...

Tectonic plates: can’t live with them, can’t live without them. Their movements cause some of the world’s deadliest disasters, but, as you’re about to see, the alternative is much, much worse.

About 150 million years ago, a massive tectonic mega-plate stretched across the Earth, spanning roughly a quarter of the size of the Pacific Ocean. Its jagged contours ran all the way through the ...

The movement of the tectonic plates influences the movement of Earth's continents. The Earth we see today, about 336 million years ago, was only one supercontinent known as Pangea. In this article, we ...

For the first time, scientists have seen a subduction zone actively breaking apart beneath the Pacific Northwest. Seismic data show the oceanic plate tearing into fragments, forming microplates in a ...

The surface tectonic style of rocky planets controls interior evolution, geologic activity, dynamo action, atmospheric composition, and thus, habitability. In the solar system, Earth is unique in ...

Based on a series of models considering how the continents were assembled over time, a team of researchers at the University of Adelaide created an updated map of Earth's tectonic plates. The map will ...

An earthquake-generating chunk of tectonic plate has been discovered beneath Northern California. It’s attached to the bottom of the North American plate like gum stuck to a shoe. Using abundant, tiny ...

Earth is a dynamic and constantly changing planet. From the formation of mountains and oceans to the eruption of volcanoes, the surface of our planet is in a constant state of flux. At the heart of ...

Rochester researchers Wriju Chowdhury and Dustin Trail reveal information about early Earth using tiny zircon crystals, which are billions of years old and a fraction of a millimeter in size (scale ...