Researchers used small zircon crystals to unlock information about magmas and plate tectonic activity in early Earth. The research provides chemical evidence that plate tectonics was most likely ...

Map of Earth's principal tectonic plates. Earth's lithosphere. Major and minor plates. arrows indicate direction of movement at plate boundaries. Vector illustration. Billions of years ago, Earth's ...

With tectonic plates bumping and grinding against each other, Earth is a pretty active planet. But when did this activity begin? A new study from Yale University claims to have found evidence that ...

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 ...

Plate tectonics might have gotten a fitful start on the early Earth. Today, the process of Earth’s crustal movement called plate tectonics dictates nearly everything about the planet’s appearance, ...

Magnetic data locked in ancient crystals suggest that life may have emerged long before the Earth’s tectonic plates started moving. If the finding holds true, it would overturn the conventional notion ...

New information about conditions that can cause Earth's tectonic plates to sink into the earth has been released in a new report. In a paper published in Proceedings of the National Academy of ...

If you’ve ever felt the earth shudder beneath your feet during an earthquake, you’re no stranger to the effects of Earth’s ever-roaming tectonic plates. While scientists have linked the movements of ...

Plate tectonics is the great unifying theory of geology, which makes it all the more amazing that it has only been accepted for about 50 years. If you think we’ve got it all figured out by now, a ...

Earth is a dynamic and constantly changing planet. From the formation of mountains and oceans to the eruption of volcanoes, the surface of our planet is in a constant state of flux. At the heart of ...

Rochester researchers Wriju Chowdhury and Dustin Trail reveal information about early Earth using tiny zircon crystals, which are billions of years old and a fraction of a millimeter in size (scale ...