Ancient tectonic plates continue to reshape the Earth's interior and reveal a deep connection to its global dynamics ...

The rocks didn’t look like much from the outside. Scattered across a remote stretch of western Australia called North Pole Dome, they were ancient, weathered, and largely ignored for the better part ...

The colossal movements of tectonic plates shape our world, influencing the composition of Earth’s atmosphere, the planet’s protective magnetic field and perhaps even the flourishing of life. Now ...

Earth is truly unique among our Solar System’s planets. It has vast water oceans and abundant life. But Earth is also unique because it is the only planet with plate tectonics, which shaped its ...

Tectonic map of the Earth. The first continental crust on Earth formed more than 3 billion years ago. Likely the first fragments formed by partial melting and re-crystallization of the primordial ...

Watch the Earth's tectonic plates grow, shrink, and jostle for position in this new model of the last billion years on the ...

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, ...

Earth is estimated to be 4.5 billion years old, but understanding when it evolved from a sizzling hot ball to a planet that could host life is a little more difficult. Earth is estimated to be 4.5 ...

Map of the Earth showing tectonic plates. Early Earth likely had no plate tectonics, but a solid outer crust with no tectonic activity covered the entire planet. After being broken up by convection ...

The Earth with the upper mantle revealed. Researchers at The University of Texas at Austin have discovered a previously unknown layer of partly molten rock in a key region just below the tectonic ...