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 ...

(CN) — Think the first world wide web is a recent development? Think again. Billions of years before the internet was created, a natural process involving tectonic plates became a global network that ...

From time to time, when Earth's tectonic plates shift, the planet emits a long, slow belch of carbon dioxide. In a new modeling study published in Geochemistry, Geophysics, Geosystems, R. Dietmar ...

Forbes contributors publish independent expert analyses and insights. An award-winning reporter writing about stargazing and the night sky. Are we alone, and if so, why? So far, the search for ...

The dance of the continents has been reshaping Earth for billions of years, creating the landscapes we walk on today. Scientists are unlocking secrets about how plate tectonics forged our modern world ...

In the desolate landscape of western Australia, a rocky outcrop that formed more than three billion years ago is giving geologists an unprecedented look at the early churnings of our planet. These ...

Scientists have determined that a volcano and mountain plateau across Turkey formed not by the collision of tectonic plates, but by a massive detachment of plate material beneath Earth's surface. They ...

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, ...

Ancient plate tectonics in the Archean period differs from modern plate tectonics in the Phanerozoic period because of the higher mantle temperatures inside the early Earth, the thicker basaltic crust ...

When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission. Here’s how it works. The grinding of giant chunks of Earth's outer layer — responsible for burping volcanoes, crushing ...