Seismic measurements show that in some regions of the Earth's mantle, plate tectonics stagnates. The causes of the 'congestion' of the subducted plate are still unknown. In a new study, mineralogists ...

The emergence of plate tectonics in the late 1960s led to a paradigm shift from fixism to mobilism of global tectonics, providing a unifying context for the previously disparate disciplines of Earth ...

Plate tectonics is a theory of geology developed to explain the phenomenon of continental drift and is currently the theory accepted by the vast majority of scientists working in this area. In the ...

It’s right there in the name: “plate tectonics.” Geology’s organizing theory hinges on plates—thin, interlocking pieces of Earth’s rocky skin. Plates’ movements explain earthquakes, volcanoes, ...

Vast amounts of sediment eroded from Earth’s continents were necessary to lubricate the wheel of plate tectonics, scientists propose. The idea offers a new angle on long-standing riddles about the ...

Plate tectonics is the theory used to explain the structure of the Earth’s crust and many of the associated phenomenon. The rigid lithosphere is split into 15 major plates that slowly move on top of ...

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 ...

The initiation of plate tectonics on Earth is a critical event in our planet’s history. The time lag between the first proto-subduction (about 4 billion years ago) and global tectonics (approximately ...

Craig O'Neill receives funding from the ARC. Plate tectonics may be a phase in the evolution of planets that has implications for the habitability of exoplanets, according to new research published ...

The emergence of plate tectonics is arguably Earth's defining moment, the authors of a new Nature paper write. Out of all the planets we’ve looked at carefully, Earth is the only one that has a hard ...

The plates — interlocking slabs of crust that float on Earth's viscous upper mantle — were created by a process similar to the subduction seen today when one plate dives below another, the report says ...

From the deepest ocean trench to the tallest mountain, plate tectonics explains the features and movement of Earth's surface in the present and the past. The theory of plate tectonics was developed ...