The dance of the continents has been reshaping Earth for billions of years, creating the landscapes we walk on today. Scientists are unlocking secrets about how plate tectonics forged our modern world ...

Researchers have produced a new estimate for the origin of Earth's plate tectonics—the movement of large chunks of the planet's outer layer, or crust. Although there is broad consensus that plate ...

The emergence of plate tectonics in the late 1960s led to a paradigm shift from fixism to mobilism of global tectonics, providing a unifying context for the previously disparate disciplines of Earth ...

It’s right there in the name: “plate tectonics.” Geology’s organizing theory hinges on plates—thin, interlocking pieces of Earth’s rocky skin. Plates’ movements explain earthquakes, volcanoes, ...

For millions of years, Earth’s moving plates have sculpted continents, carved oceans, and built massive mountain ranges. Yet some of these giant structures vanished deep into the mantle, hidden from ...

Forbes contributors publish independent expert analyses and insights. David Bressan is a geologist who covers curiosities about Earth. Jan 25, 2024, 11:36am EST Jan 29, 2024, 08:24am EST Map of the ...

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 ...

The transition to plate tectonics started with the help of lubricating sediments, scraped by glaciers from the slopes of Earth's first continents, according to new research. Earth's outer layer is ...

Our planet is in constant flux. Tectonic plates—the large slabs of rock that divide Earth’s crust so that it looks like a cracked eggshell—jostle about in fits and starts that continuously reshape our ...

https://siris-libraries.si.edu/ipac20/ipac.jsp?&profile=liball&source=~!silibraries&uri=full=3100001~!921832~!0#focus ...