Our planet's lithosphere is broken into several tectonic plates. Their configuration is ever-shifting, as supercontinents are assembled and broken up, and oceans form, grow, and then start to close in ...

With unprecedented clarity, scientists have directly observed a subduction zone—the collision point where one tectonic plate ...

An international research collaboration has harnessed supercomputing power to better understand how massive slabs of ancient ocean floors are shaped as they sink hundreds of kilometers below Earth's ...

(a) Geological units and earthquake distribution of an oceanic subduction zone. The orange shadow beneath the volcanic arc represents partially molten areas and magma channels. (b) Thermal structure ...

Geoscientists have discovered a new process in plate tectonics which shows that tremendous damage occurs to areas of Earth's crust long before it should be geologically altered by known plate-boundary ...

When the tectonic subduction zone beneath the Pacific Northwest moves, it does so in dramatic fashion. Not only is ground ...

Several billion-year-old rocks tell the story of the planet’s transition from alien landscape to one of continents, oceans, and ultimately life A new study from scientists at Scripps Institution of ...

South of New Zealand in the Tasman Sea is a stretch of stormy ocean where the waves regularly swell 20 feet (6 meters) or more and the winds blow at 30 mph (48 km/h) on a good day. Deep below these ...

Around 800 million years ago, during the Tonian period, the Yangtze Block in South China experienced significant tectonic activity, in which the ancient supercontinent Rodinia broke off from the area ...

TORONTO, ON - Geoscientists at the University of Toronto (U of T) and Istanbul Technical University have discovered a new process in plate tectonics which shows that tremendous damage occurs to areas ...