Ancient rocks on the coast of Oman that were once driven deep down toward Earth's mantle may reveal new insights into subduction, an important tectonic process that fuels volcanoes and creates ...

In deep Earth, rocks take up and release water all the time, and the effects can be wide reaching. Dehydration can cause rocks to crack and trigger earthquakes, and over geologic timescales, this ...

On the arid margins of northeast Africa, beneath the sediment and heat of the Gulf of Suez, a tectonic feature long thought ...

Massive tectonic collisions in the tropics may have caused Earth's last three great ice ages. Before each of these ice ages, new research finds, collisions between continents and island arcs built ...

When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission. Here’s how it works. Massive tectonic collisions in the tropics may have caused Earth's last three great ice ages.

Saint Louis University researchers report new information about conditions that can cause the Earth's tectonic plates to sink into the Earth. In a paper published in Proceedings of the National ...

A new study introduces a novel way for tectonic plates — massive sheets of rock that jostle for position in the Earth’s crust and upper mantle — to bend and sink. It’s a bit of planetary Pilates that ...

Earth’s plate tectonics could be a passing phase. After simulating rock and heat flow throughout a planet’s lifetime, researchers have proposed that plate tectonics is just one stage of a planet’s ...

When tectonic plates sink into the Earth they look like slinky snakes! That's according to a study published in Nature, which helps answer a long standing question about what happens to tectonic ...