Our planet has an outer layer made up of several plates, which move relative to one another. While we may take this knowledge for granted, this theory of plate tectonics was only formulated in the ...

Geologists have made a startling discovery, the Indian tectonic plate is tearing apart beneath Tibet, unveiling a complex geological process that could reshape our understanding of how the Earth’s ...

Africa is undergoing a gradual geological transformation, with tectonic forces slowly pulling the continent apart. This process, driven by movements along the East African Rift System, is separating ...

Alan Collins receives funding from The Australian Research Council (he is an ARC Laureate Fellow), AuScope and the MinEx CRC. He also has funding from a number of State and Federal Government bodies ...

Plate tectonics is a highly complex phenomenon that underpins almost every geological process and our understanding of Earth. Increasingly sophisticated computers and statistical approaches, including ...

Computer simulations suggest that a collision with another planetary object early in Earth’s history may have provided the heat to set off plate tectonics. By Lucas Joel Some 4.5 billion years ago, ...

Earth's surface is a turbulent place. Mountains rise, continents merge and split, and earthquakes shake the ground. All of these processes result from plate tectonics, the movement of enormous chunks ...

Researchers in China and Australia have created an animation that details Earth's tectonic movements over the past 1.8 billion years. In just over a minute, the video offers a mesmerizing look at how ...

Researchers used small zircon crystals to unlock information about magmas and plate tectonic activity in early Earth. The research provides chemical evidence that plate tectonics was most likely ...

A peek into the curious geology of the Pacific Northwest helps tease apart what may happen when the last bits of an oceanic plate get swallowed up. Scientists on board the R/V Thomas G. Thompson ...

Forbes contributors publish independent expert analyses and insights. David Bressan is a geologist who covers curiosities about Earth. This is how the western hemisphere of the Earth may have appeared ...