THAT AUTUMN, A RESEARCH VESSEL called the Glomar Challenger sailed over the Mid-Atlantic Ridge to drill holes and sample sediment. Fossils within the sediment samples they retrieved gave scientists a ...

A new study of rocks that formed billions of years ago lends fresh insight into how Earth's plate tectonics—the movement of large pieces of Earth's outer shell—evolved over the planet's ...

Scientists warn that the plate beneath Gibraltar arc will begin to shift toward the Atlantic within 20 million years.

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 ...

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 ...

The theory of Plate tectonics – developed from Alfred Wegener’s theory of Continental Drift to explain the movement of the continents – has become the prevailing theory underpinning our understanding ...

A study led by Prof. Yong-Fei Zheng at University of Science and Technology of China focused on the development of tectonic processes along convergent plate margins through inspection of recent ...

With tectonic plates bumping and grinding against each other, Earth is a pretty active planet. But when did this activity begin? A new study from Yale University claims to have found evidence that ...

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 ...

Earth’s plate tectonics could be a passing phase. After simulating rock and heat flow throughout a planet’s lifetime, researchers have proposed that plate tectonics is just one stage of a planet’s ...

Scientists have uncovered one of the most exciting geological discoveries of the decade – the long-lost Pontus tectonic plate. This ancient “mega plate,” which once spanned an astonishing 15 million ...