Earthquakes and volcanism occur as a result of plate tectonics. The movement of tectonic plates themselves is largely driven by the process known as subduction. The question of how new active ...

The dance of the continents has been reshaping Earth for billions of years, creating the landscapes we walk on today.

New Curtin University research on the remixing of Earth’s stratified deep interior suggests that global plate tectonic processes, which played a pivotal role in the existence of life on Earth, started ...

Tulane researchers uncover why some continental plates stay strong while others fracture, reshaping understanding of Earth’s ...

The tiny Juan de Fuca plate is largely responsible for the volcanoes that dot the Pacific Northwest of the United States. The plates make up Earth's outer shell, called the lithosphere. (This includes ...

Tulane University researchers, collaborating with an international team of scientists, have discovered why some parts of ...

TORONTO, ON - Geoscientists at the University of Toronto (U of T) and Istanbul Technical University have discovered a new process in plate tectonics which shows that tremendous damage occurs to areas ...

An early form of plate tectonics on a hotter young Earth may have been responsible for the initial rise of the Earth’s great landmasses and even for an increase in atmospheric oxygen levels, new ...

Earth's mantle is so gooey, it takes eons for material that has been displaced by the weight of ice sheets to flow back. And ...

New information about conditions that can cause Earth's tectonic plates to sink into the earth has been released in a new report. In a paper published in Proceedings of the National Academy of ...

In deep Earth, rocks take up and release water all the time, and the effects can be wide reaching. Dehydration can cause rocks to crack and trigger earthquakes, and over geologic timescales, this ...

"Plate tectonics as we know it on Earth today is not a good model for understanding processes in the Earth's earliest history," Naeraa said. His team's findings were published May 31 in the journal ...