Geologists from the University of Hong Kong (HKU) have made a breakthrough in understanding how Earth's early continents ...

Far beneath the ocean's surface, where mountain belts rise and ancient oceanic crust lies hidden, a long-lost tectonic plate ...

Emerging evidence suggests that plate tectonics, or the recycling of Earth's crust, may have begun much earlier than previously thought — and may be a big reason that our planet harbors life.

Plate tectonics, or the recycling of Earth’s crust, may have begun much earlier than previously thought—and may be a big reason that our planet harbors life. Skip to main content.

The research provides chemical evidence that plate tectonics was most likely occurring more than 4.2 billion years ago when life is thought to have first formed on our planet.

The oldest unambiguous evidence of modern plate tectonics dates to the Neoproterozoic (1 billion to 541 million years ago), Robert Stern, a geoscientist at the University of Texas, Dallas, told ...

Plate tectonics allows heat from Earth's interior to escape to the surface, forming continents and other geological features necessary for life to emerge. Accordingly, ...

Here's What'll Happen When Plate Tectonics Grinds to a Halt. A new study says we may only have another 1.45 billion years to enjoy the dynamic action of Earth’s geologic engine.

Plate tectonics was still relatively new, and continents were in the early stages of emerging from what had largely been a water world. The air was devoid of oxygen, ...

Plate tectonics, or the shifting of plates across a planet or moon, may be the key to lifeforms developing as an advanced species. And the rarity of plate tectonics elsewhere in the universe may ...

A plume of molten rock rising from the depths of the Earth in heartbeat-like pulses is slowly tearing Africa apart—and will ...

In plate tectonics, pancake-like chunks of brittle crust and upper mantle ride on the hotter, more mobile mantle below. New crust forms at midocean ridges, where gaps between separating plates ...