The undersea plate boundary beneath the Strait of Gibraltar, known as the Gibraltar arc, is slowly moving into the Atlantic ...

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 ...

Have tectonic plates changed speed over the last 3 billion years? The answer has far-reaching implications, as plate tectonics affected everything from the supply of vital nutrients for early life to ...

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 ...

As an undergrad at MIT in the 1950s, Lynn Sykes ’59, SM ’60, became interested in the theory of continental drift, which held that the world’s great landmasses had wandered across Earth over time. The ...

New finding contradicts previous assumptions about the role of mobile plate tectonics in the development of life on Earth. Moreover, the data suggests that 'when we're looking for exoplanets that ...

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 ...

One of Earth’s defining features is its plate tectonics, a phenomenon that shapes the planet’s surface and creates some of its most catastrophic events, like earthquakes, tsunamis, and volcanic ...

We’ve known for a while that Mars was once a wet world. But there’s always been a geological puzzle regarding how and where that water moved. On Earth, rivers are largely driven by plate tectonics.

Earth's surface is broken up into large plates that rub against each other, causing earthquakes, volcanoes and large mountain ranges. But how unique is our planet's geology? When you purchase through ...

A new study challenges the long-standing theory that Yellowstone’s volcanic activity is powered by a deep mantle plume, finding instead that tectonic forces in Earth’s crust drive its magma system.