A hidden chunk of an ancient tectonic plate is stuck to the Pacific Ocean floor and sliding under North America, complicating ...

A hidden shard of ancient crust has been detected where California’s San Andreas system collides with the Cascadia subduction ...

Earth is estimated to be 4.5 billion years old, but understanding when it evolved from a sizzling hot ball to a planet that could host life is a little more difficult. Earth is estimated to be 4.5 ...

Scientists for the first time have detected a slow slip earthquake in motion during the act of releasing tectonic pressure on a major fault zone at the bottom of the ocean. The slow earthquake was ...

An enduring question in geology is when Earth’s tectonic plates began pushing and pulling in a process that helped the planet evolve and shaped its continents into the ones that exist today. Some ...

A newly identified tectonic "regime" may rewrite our understanding of how rocky worlds evolve, scientists report in a new study. The findings may help to explain why Earth became geologically vibrant ...

In 2021, geologists animated a video that shows how Earth's tectonic plates moved over the last billion years. The plates move together and apart at the speed of fingernail growth, and the video ...

New research analyzing pieces of the most ancient rocks on the planet adds some of the sharpest evidence yet that Earth’s crust was pushing and pulling in a manner similar to modern plate tectonics at ...

The first direct evidence of how and when tectonic plates move into the deepest reaches of the Earth is published in Nature today. Scientists hope their description of how plates collide with one ...

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 ...

A geologic map of the Pilbara Craton in Western Australia. The rocks exposed here range from 2.5 to 3.5 billion years ago, offering a uniquely well-preserved window into Earth's deep past. The authors ...

Scientists have taken a journey back in time to unlock the mysteries of Earth’s early history, using tiny mineral crystals called zircons to study plate tectonics billions of years ago. The research ...