A handful of ancient zircon crystals found in South Africa hold the oldest evidence of subduction, a key element of plate tectonics, according to a new study published in the open access journal AGU ...

Scientists have taken a journey back in time to unlock the mysteries of Earth’s early history, using tiny mineral crystals called zircons to study plate tectonics billions of years ago. The research ...

Along submarine mountain ranges, the mid-ocean ridges, forces from the Earth's interior push tectonic plates apart, forming new ocean floor and thus moving continents about. However, many features of ...

In 2016, the geochemists Jonas Tusch and Carsten Münker hammered a thousand pounds of rock from the Australian Outback and airfreighted it home to Cologne, Germany. Five years of sawing, crushing, ...

It’s right there in the name: “plate tectonics.” Geology’s organizing theory hinges on plates—thin, interlocking pieces of Earth’s rocky skin. Plates’ movements explain earthquakes, volcanoes, ...

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Creative destruction: a thinner ocean plate sides under a continental plate, melting and recycling the ocean crust into the Earth’s interior and birthing volcanoes in this illustration of subduction, ...

Earth is the only known planet which has plate tectonics today. The constant movement of these giant slabs of rock over the planet’s magma creates continents – and may have even helped create life. In ...

You probably know that the Earth's crust is broken up into huge tectonic plates that slide under, over and past each other, slowly building mountains, forming new oceans and triggering earthquakes.

This period was anything but boring. There was a time in Earth’s history that was so stable, geologists once called it the Boring Billion. But the fact is, this period was anything but boring. In fact ...