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 ...

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The dance of the continents has been reshaping Earth for billions of years, creating the landscapes we walk on today. Scientists are unlocking secrets about how plate tectonics forged our modern world ...

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 ...

For decades, scientists have accepted a particular theory regarding the evolution Earth’s plate tectonics, but a recent study published in Nature Geoscience could defy this as a team of researchers ...

It has been thought that plate tectonics were a significant factor in the shaping of our planet and the evolution of life. Mars and Venus don't experience such movements of crustal plates, but then ...

Plate boundaries are where the action is. A large fraction of all earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, and mountain building occurs at plate boundaries. It is also where most of the people on Earth live.

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A new study suggests that plate tectonics -- a scientific theory that divides the earth into large chunks of crust that move slowly over hot viscous mantle rock -- could have been active from the ...

Creative destruction: a thinner ocean plate sides under a continental plate, melting and recycling the ocean crust into the Earth’s interior and birthing volcanoes in this illustration of subduction, ...