Earth's surface is covered by more than a dozen tectonic plates, and in subduction zones around the world—including the ...

Subduction zones, where one tectonic plate dives underneath another, drive the world’s most devastating earthquakes and tsunamis. How do these danger zones come to be? A study in Geology presents ...

Earth’s crust may have gone on the move roughly 3.8 billion years ago. “Earth is actually quite distinct to other planets, in that it has plate tectonics,” says study coauthor Nadja Drabon, a ...

Add Yahoo as a preferred source to see more of our stories on Google. When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission. Plate tectonics may have ...

Geophysicists can use a new model to explain the behavior of a tectonic plate sinking into a subduction zone in the Earth's mantle: the plate becomes weak and thus more deformable when mineral grains ...

Tiny zircon crystals are revealing that Earth’s earliest history may have included surprisingly complex tectonic activity.

The concurrent subduction of the Pacific and Atlantic plates resulted in the formation of a mantle plum and the ascent of magma. Credit: Nicolas Riel Earthquakes and volcanism occur as a result of ...

Several billion-year-old rocks tell the story of the planet’s transition from alien landscape to one of continents, oceans, and ultimately life A new study from scientists at Scripps Institution of ...

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 ...

Microscopic zircon crystals discovered in Western Australia suggest that Earth may have had continental crust as early as 4.4 ...

A new study from scientists at Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego and the University of Chicago sheds light on a hotly contested debate in Earth sciences: when did plate subduction ...