As observed in Lesson 3, at low pressures and temperatures rock is a brittle material that will fail by fracture if the stresses become sufficiently large. When a lateral displacement takes place on a ...

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 ...

Kinematic plate reconstructions and high-resolution global dynamic models developed to quantify the amount of Pacific Plate motion change associated with the Hawaiian -- Emperor Bend. Scientists are ...

Computer simulations, paleomagnetism and plate motion histories described in today's issue of Science reveal how hotspots, centers of erupting magma that sit atop columns of hot mantle that were once ...

The discovery of a new primitive microcontinent between Greenland and Canada could help scientists understand how microcontinents form. Researchers studied how the tectonic plates of the Davis Strait ...

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 ...