New research indicates that plate tectonics may have been well underway on Earth more than 3.2 billion years ago, adding a new dimension to an ongoing debate about exactly when plate tectonics began ...

Identification of the oldest preserved pieces of Earth's crust in southern Greenland has provided evidence of active plate tectonics as early as 3.8 billion years ago, according to a report by an ...

Plate tectonics may be unique to Earth and may be an essential characteristic of habitable planets. Estimates for its onset range from over 4 billion years ago to just 800 million years ago. A new ...

For the first time in history, scientists have observed the rupture of a tectonic plate in a subduction zone in real time.

Earth surface is covered with rigid plates that move, crash into each other and dive into the planet's interior. But when did this process begin? When you purchase through links on our site, we may ...

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 ...

His framework offered a new way to think about continental drift and revolutionized the study of earthquakes, volcanoes and evolution. By Clay Risen W. Jason Morgan, who in 1967 developed the theory ...

The chemical and thermal history of the Earth enabled the reactions required to create the building blocks of life. Our nitrogen-rich atmosphere, for example, is critical for chemical reactions that ...