THAT AUTUMN, A RESEARCH VESSEL called the Glomar Challenger sailed over the Mid-Atlantic Ridge to drill holes and sample sediment. Fossils within the sediment samples they retrieved gave scientists a ...

Ending the year with a stunning 66% gain, gold prices experienced their best annual performance since 1979, holding solid ...

Scientists warn that the plate beneath Gibraltar arc will begin to shift toward the Atlantic within 20 million years.

Far beneath the South Pacific, a continent the size of India has finally stepped out of the cartographic shadows. After ...

LSU scientists have discovered a subduction zone decaying near Vancouver Island in British Columbia, Canada that sheds light on how tectonic plates on the Earth’s surface evolve. A Science Advances ...

A new study presented at the 2025 EPSC/DPS Joint Meeting proposes that the rarity of specific geological and atmospheric conditions necessary for technologically advanced life significantly limits the ...

Plate tectonics regulate the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere as part of the carbon-silicate cycle, and so a habitable planet requires plate tectonics. Gradually, though, the carbon dioxide ...

More than a century ago, Alfred Wegener proposed that the Atlantic Ocean formed after North America drifted away from Africa and Eurasia. Much later, the theory of plate tectonics explained this ...

Ancient magma plume found beneath Oman’s Salma Plateau remains hidden Researchers believe the buried plume redirected India’s tectonic path Plume named “Dani” is amagmatic, meaning it caused no ...

Continental clues: Modern continental rocks carry chemical signatures from the very start of our planet’s history, challenging current theories about plate tectonics. Credit: Morris McLennan, ...

Earth is the only known planet which has plate tectonics today. The constant movement of these giant slabs of rock over the planet’s magma creates continents – and may have even helped create life. In ...