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 ...

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

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 ...

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 ...

Add Yahoo as a preferred source to see more of our stories on Google. The modern understanding of the plate tectonic cycle predicts that remnants of submerged plates will be found near subduction ...

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 ...

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 ...

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

Elements of a newly discovered process in plate tectonics include a mass (rock slab weight), a pulley (trench), a dashpot (microcontinent), and a string (oceanic plate) that connects these elements to ...