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 in the open access journal AGU ...

Earth shown with no water with cracks in the surface where orange magma can be seen on black background of space Earth's surface is ever-changing, with tectonic plates grinding and shifting, building ...

A unique rock formation in China holds clues that tectonic plates subducted, or went underneath other plates, during the Archean eon (4 billion to 2.5 billion years ago), just as they do nowadays, a ...

When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission. Credit: Yarr65 via Shutterstock It's one of many unique things about Earth: Unlike every other ...

Observations indicate that plate tectonics began before any currently known structural geological record on Earth Identification of the oldest preserved pieces of Earth’s crust in southern Greenland ...

Early in Earth’s history, the heat left over from the collision that formed the Moon left its surface an ocean of magma. As it cooled, its crust was frequently shattered by massive impacts that ...

A Brown University study provides new evidence that the icy shell of Jupiter’s moon Europa may have plate tectonics similar to those on Earth. The presence of plate tectonic activity could have ...

Harvard University researchers say they’ve found evidence that the outer layers of the Earth more than 3 billion years ago cracked into shifting tectonic plates, as they are today, adding to a debate ...

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 Advances, AGU’s ...

Researchers analyzing ancient deposits in Australia found evidence that Earth's layers started to get mixed up — a fingerprint of plate tectonics — about 1.3 billion years after the planet formed.

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 ...

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, ...