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 ...

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 ...

Researchers describe zircons from the Andes mountains of Patagonia. Although the zircons formed when tectonic plates were colliding, they have a chemical signature associated with when the plates were ...

Earthquakes and volcanism occur as a result of plate tectonics. The movement of tectonic plates themselves is largely driven by the process known as subduction. The question of how new active ...

A study on tectonic plates that converge on the Tibetan Plateau has shown that Earth's fault lines are far weaker and the ...

A recently published study has revealed a little-known tectonic process unfolding beneath Turkey’s Central Anatolian Plateau, where part of the Earth’s crust is “dripping” deep into the planet’s ...

Mountain building, also known as orogenesis, is a geological process that involves the formation and uplift of large, elevated landforms, known as mountains. The term "orogenesis" comes from Greek ...

Tectonic map of the Earth. The first continental crust on Earth formed more than 3 billion years ago. Likely the first fragments formed by partial melting and re-crystallization of the primordial ...

New research has revealed Venus may have had Earth-like plate tectonics billions of years ago. The finding opens up the possibility that the second planet from the sun, aka a scorching world, also ...

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 ...

The opening and closing of the Rocas Verdes Basin, a back-arc basin in Patagonia, as described by researchers at The University of Texas at Austin in a study published in Geology. Panels B and C ...