But scientists have debated for decades when this shift began. Some theories suggest that Earth’s crust was a single, rigid shell before it was shattered. A new study has uncovered the oldest evidence ...

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 ...

One of Earth’s defining features is its plate tectonics, a phenomenon that shapes the planet’s surface and creates some of its most catastrophic events, like earthquakes, tsunamis, and volcanic ...

As an undergrad at MIT in the 1950s, Lynn Sykes ’59, SM ’60, became interested in the theory of continental drift, which held that the world’s great landmasses had wandered across Earth over time. The ...

Breakthroughs, discoveries, and DIY tips sent six days a week. Terms of Service and Privacy Policy. Despite being our closest planetary neighbor, Venus is a pretty ...

Direct evidence of the movements of tectonic plates has been found in some of the world’s oldest rocks, in the Pilbara Craton, Western Australia. This evidence dates back 3.5 billion years; the ...

"There's a lot of work that seems to suggest that early in Earth's history plate tectonics wasn't actually the dominant way in which the planet's internal heat gets released as it is today through the ...

W. Jason Morgan, a Princeton University geologist who laid out an influential new vision of our evolving planet, attributing the most powerful upheavals — earthquakes, volcanoes and the formation of ...

We’ve known for a while that Mars was once a wet world. But there’s always been a geological puzzle regarding how and where that water moved. On Earth, rivers are largely driven by plate tectonics.