An earthquake-generating chunk of tectonic plate has been discovered beneath Northern California. It’s attached to the bottom of the North American plate like gum stuck to a shoe. Using abundant, tiny ...

This piece is part of a special project on deep time examining what the Western U.S. was like thousands, millions and even billions of years ago, and how that history is still visible and ...

The tectonic plates are among the most powerful forces on Earth, exerting tremendous influence over every single life that unfolds on this planet. They are both creators and destroyers, capable of ...

All complex life on Earth may be the result of plate tectonics tearing apart the ancient supercontinent Nuna 1.5 billion years ago, according to new research out of Australia. “Our approach shows how ...

The rare earth element niobium was likely dragged to the surface as the supercontinent Rodinia broke apart more than 800 million years ago. Credit: Artem Topchiy/Wikimedia, CC BY-SA 3.0 For much of ...

For decades, scientists have grappled with a profound question known as the Fermi Paradox: if the galaxy is teeming with the potential for extraterrestrial life, why is the cosmos so quiet? A new ...

Recent findings reveal that the Indian Plate is splitting into two, a phenomenon that could reshape the region’s geological landscape. Published in the American Geophysical Union, this groundbreaking ...

In the early Mesozoic, subduction of the Paleo-Pacific Plate initiated along the eastern margin of Eurasia and related circum-Pacific terranes. The subduction associated contraction led to the ...

Alfred Wagner proposed a theory in 1912 that paved the way for plate tectonics. Wagner’s concept of continental drift was used to explain what happened when the supercontinent of Pangaea broke up some ...

On Earth, the land moves. Over millions of years, continents shift and the entire surface of the planet reshapes itself. The driver of all this is plate tectonics: Earth’s surface is divided into ...