Earth's surface is ever-changing, with tectonic plates grinding and shifting, building mountain ranges, pulling apart sea floors and causing dramatic earthquakes. Now, new research adds to the growing ...

WASHINGTON — A handful of ancient zircon crystals found in South Africa hold the oldest evidence of subduction, a key element of plate tectonics, according to a new study published today in AGU ...

New finding contradicts previous assumptions about the role of mobile plate tectonics in the development of life on Earth. Moreover, the data suggests that 'when we're looking for exoplanets that ...

researchers have uncovered the oldest direct evidence of tectonic plate movement, dating back 3.5 billion years. This revelation, published in Science, challenges long-held assumptions about Earth’s ...

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 ...

Creative destruction: a thinner ocean plate sides under a continental plate, melting and recycling the ocean crust into the Earth’s interior and birthing volcanoes in this illustration of subduction, ...