Credit: University of St Andrews

Hidden past of Earth’s oldest continents unearthed

Satellite image of the Gibraltar Arc. Credit: NASA

Lithospheric thickening beneath the Betics and Rif mountains pulls down the...

Earth's layers

New insights into the formation of Earth’s crust

A schematic summary of the effect of the convergence rate. Upper image shows a slow convergence rate allows thermal difussion and a derived reduction of slab's density (positive buoyancy). Lower image shows how a faster convergence rate increases the slab's density promoting the negative buoyancy. Credit: Kittiphon Boonma, Scientific Reports

Study explores the density of the tectonic plates and why they...

The deep structure of the continent Antarctica. Credit: Planetary Visions (credit: ESA/Planetary Visions)

The Antarctic: Data about the structure of the icy continent

This figure illustrates how inorganic carbon cycles through the mantle more quickly than organic carbon, which contains very little of the isotope carbon-13. Both inorganic and organic carbon are drawn into Earth's mantle at subduction zones (top left).

Study points to one cause for several mysteries linked to breathable...

Spherules in the Barberton greenstone belt in the Kaapvaal craton, South Africa. Credit: Lowe et al., 2014.

Extra-terrestrial impacts may have triggered ‘bursts’ of plate tectonics

Reconstructed paleo-elevation in southwestern North America at the Late Eocene (36 million years ago). Credit: Bahadori and Holt

New geologic modeling method explains collapse of ancient mountains in American...

Earth

Telescopes and satellites combine to map entire planet’s ground movement

Images of the numerical solution at the moment when a supercontinent (left, in purplish grey) begins to break up. In the image on the left, the modelled fictional planet looks much like the Earth: its surface and mantle move spontaneously, at speeds close to those observed on Earth. The distribution of the plates (some of which are large, while many are small) is also similar, as is the topography: red hues represent shallow regions of the ocean (ridges), while blue indicates the deep seafloor. The deepest blue areas correspond to subduction trenches (where a plate is sinking into the mantle). The continents are shown in translucent white (and therefore appear purplish grey).The image on the right shows warm currents (plumes) rising from the bottom of the mantle. Credit: Nicolas Coltice

What makes the Earth’s surface move?

As part of MISTI-India, Megan Guenther, a junior in EAPS, records field notes about the landscape of the Kohistan-Ladakh region of the Himalayas in northern India. Credit: Craig Martin

Collision course: A geological mystery in the Himalayas

A detail of the southern wall of the Las Cañadas caldera de . It is the best exposed sector of this volcanic structure. (Imagen: Joan Martí)

Study provides new insight into the origin of Las Cañadas caldera...

Fig. 1 Map of the 2016 Kaikōura earthquake and surrounding area. (A) Transpressional tectonic setting of the northeastern South Island of New Zealand. (B) Map of surface ruptures from the 2016 Mw 7.8 Kaikōura earthquake, shown in bold black lines with the Papatea fault in red (8, 28). Dots represent scaled relative energy release from back-projection results (15) and are colored by time since rupture onset. Mapped active faults that did not rupture during the Kaikōura event are indicated by thin black lines (28). Credit: Science Advances 02 Oct 2019: Vol. 5, no. 10, eaax5703, DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.aax5703

Unusual fault rupture during Kaikōura quake

A river flows between mountains at Yellowstone National Park in Wyoming. New research tests a 30-year-old theory on the relationship between erosion and mountain height. Photo credit: Seth Cottle/Unsplash

Why are mountains so high?

Machu Pichu. Detailed mapping indicates the World Heritage Site’s location and layout were dictated by the underlying geological faults. Photo taken 5 Nov. 2010; credit: Rualdo Menegat.

Machu Picchu: Ancient Incan sanctuary intentionally built on faults

Photographs of alkaline magmatic intrusions in Greenland. The region was volcanically and tectonically active around 1.2 billion years ago. Although no longer active, it is of major interest to geologists because the subsequent uplift and glacial erosion have cut deep into the rift and exposed the magma chambers that once lay well below the surface. Greenland’s magmas were sourced from a mantle that was enriched and contaminated by ancient crustal materials. Credit: University of St Andrews

Ancient volcanoes reveal Earth’s recycled crust

Global paleomagnetic plate reconstructions a. 270 Ma, b. 180 Ma, and inset the Present Tethyan Realm. Credit: ©Science China Press

What drives plate tectonics?

Continents breaking up and getting back together. Image credit: Naeblys / Getty Images

Researchers uncover 2.5 billion years of Earth’s continents breaking up and...

Schematic diagram of water and chlorine transfer by the oceanic crust into the transitional zone of the mantle and the subsequent capture of the resulting material by an Archaean mantle plume. Credit: Evgeny Asafov

Scientists discover how and when a subterranean ocean emerged

A fresh surface rupture of the Kekerengu fault, taken 4 days after the Kaikoura earthquake, with lead author Jesse Kearse leaning next to a curved slickenline (the subject of this article). Photo credit - Professor Tim Little (Victoria University of Wellington).

Curved slickenlines preserve the direction of rupture propagation

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