Exactly when and how plate tectonics started, however, is a matter of debate. Now, in a study published March 19 in the ...

The colossal movements of tectonic plates shape our world, influencing the composition of Earth’s atmosphere, the planet’s ...

Scientists say they have uncovered new clues in Australia about when plate tectonics began on Earth, the only known planet to ...

Scientists have uncovered the oldest direct evidence yet that Earth’s tectonic plates were on the move 3.5 billion years ago.

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 ...

In 2016, the geochemists Jonas Tusch and Carsten Münker hammered a thousand pounds of rock from the Australian Outback and airfreighted it home to Cologne, Germany. Five years of sawing, crushing, ...

Magnetic crystals provide the earliest evidence yet of the plate tectonics that likely made Earth habitable, pushing its ...

On Earth, the theory of plate tectonics describes the way large pieces of the planet’s crust move and interact. These pieces, or plates, slide over the mantle, the malleable outer layer of Earth’s ...

One of Earth’s defining features is its plate tectonics, a phenomenon that shapes the planet’s surface and creates some of its most catastrophic events, like earthquakes, tsunamis, and volcanic ...

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, ...