Earth’s crust looks solid from the surface, but it is broken into a shifting mosaic of slabs that slowly rearrange oceans and continents. Understanding how those tectonic plates first formed is one of ...

Researchers describe zircons from the Andes mountains of Patagonia. Although the zircons formed when tectonic plates were colliding, they have a chemical signature associated with when the plates were ...

The Andes Mountains are much taller than plate tectonic theories predict they should be, a fact that has puzzled geologists for decades. Mountain-building models tend to focus on the deep-seated ...

Based on a series of models considering how the continents were assembled over time, a team of researchers at the University of Adelaide created an updated map of Earth's tectonic plates. The map will ...

Earth's geographical surfaces have been formed over millions of years, and various current theories aim to explain their formation. The most popular theory, called the "plate tectonics theory," states ...

Craig Robert Martin receives funding from the National Science Foundation (NSF). Breathing quickly in the thin mountain air, my colleagues and I set down our equipment. We’re at the base of a jagged ...

Geologists from the University of Hong Kong (HKU) have made a breakthrough in understanding how Earth's early continents formed during the Archean time, more than 2.5 billion years ago. Their findings ...

The Aravalli Range, which goes over 700 km from Gujarat to Delhi via Rajasthan and Haryana, is one of the earth's oldest mountain systems that date back to the Proterozoic Eon more than 2 billion ...

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 ...