New research challenges conventional wisdom by demonstrating that mid-ocean ridges and continental rifts, not volcanic ...

Carbon released from Earth's spreading tectonic plates, not volcanoes, may have triggered major transitions between ancient ...

Earth has experienced many icehouse and greenhouse climates. A new study shows how they connect to plate tectonics.

Seismic tremors reveal a shallow fragment of ancient tectonic plate beneath Northern California, helping explain damaging ...

Spain and Portugal are taking a turn. The Iberian Peninsula sits on a boundary between two large tectonic plates that are ...

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 ...

For decades, the end-stage life of a subduction zone existed only in theory. Now, for the first time in geologic history, scientists are bearing witness to the Juan de Fuca Plate tearing apart and ...

A new study presented at the 2025 EPSC/DPS Joint Meeting proposes that the rarity of specific geological and atmospheric conditions necessary for technologically advanced life significantly limits the ...

Rocks in Australia preserve evidence that plates in Earth’s crust were moving 3.5 billion years ago, a finding that pushes back the beginnings of plate tectonics by hundreds of millions of years.

Tom has a Master's degree in Journalism. His editorial work covers anything from archaeology and the environment to technology and culture. Tom has a Master's degree in Journalism. His editorial work ...

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 ...

On Earth, the land moves. Over millions of years, continents shift and the entire surface of the planet reshapes itself. The driver of all this is plate tectonics: Earth’s surface is divided into ...