Tectonic map of the Earth. The first continental crust on Earth formed more than 3 billion years ago. Likely the first fragments formed by partial melting and re-crystallization of the primordial ...

An eons-long collision that created the Himalayas, the world's tallest mountain range, may also be splitting Tibet apart into two pieces, new research suggests. The collision of the Indian and ...

RENO, Nev. – The puzzle pieces of tectonic plates that make up the outer layer of the earth are not rigid and don't fit together as nicely as we were taught in high school. A study published in the ...

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 ...

Earth's crust today has a surprisingly similar composition to the planet's first outer shell, or "protocrust," new research finds. This early rocky shell featured chemical signatures previously ...

New research reveals the source of this carbon – and the driving forces behind it – are far more complex than previously ...

The tectonic plates are among the most powerful forces on Earth, exerting tremendous influence over every single life that unfolds on this planet. They are both creators and destroyers, capable of ...

BUFFALO, N.Y. — At the boundaries between tectonic plates, narrow rifts can form as Earth’s crust slowly pulls apart. But how, exactly, does this rifting happen? Does pressure from magma rising from ...

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 ...

Plate tectonics is a highly complex phenomenon that underpins almost every geological process and our understanding of Earth. Increasingly sophisticated computers and statistical approaches, including ...

Utrecht University PhD candidate Suzanna van de Lagemaat has reconstructed a massive and previously unknown tectonic plate that was once one-quarter the size of the Pacific Ocean. She reconstructed ...