A. The lithospheric breakup-collision coupling system, in which collisional thickening of the continental crust is coupled with lithospheric breakup due to asthenospheric upwelling for active rifting. B. The seafloor spreading-lithospheric subduction coupling system, in which the oceanic slab is subducted to depths of >80–100 km for the gravitational pull, providing far-field stresses for passive rifting. Credit: Science China Press

Plate tectonics in the twenty-first century

The modern Seattle fault zone cuts directly through the densely populated Puget lowlands, including Seattle and its metro area. Fifty million years ago, the continent tore in two here, setting the geologic stage for the modern faults, according to a new Tectonics study. Credit: Washington Geological Survey.

A new origin story for deadly Seattle fault

The Albian Gap, Salt Rock, and a Heated Debate

In this image, the warped amount of the surface is due to the opening of the Central American gateway that allowed hot material to flow through. (a) Before 8.5 million years ago, hot material was upwelling under the Galapagos from deep inside the Earth, but was blocked out of the Caribbean because of a curtain of subducting plate. (b) A gateway opened at 8.5 million years ago allowing the hot material to flow through. (c) Today, the hot material reaches midway between Central America and the Lesser Antilles, tilting up the bottom of the Caribbean sea by about 300 m (1,000 ft). Credit: University of Houston

Geologists discover powerful ‘river of rocks’ below Caribbean

10,000-year record shows dramatic uplift at Andean volcano

These ancient metamorphic rocks called gneisses, found on the Arctic Coast, represent the roots of the continents now exposed at the surface. The scientists said sedimentary rocks interlayered in these types of rocks would provide a heat engine for stabilizing the continents. Credit: Jesse Reimink. All Rights Reserved.

Rock steady: Study reveals new mechanism to explain how continents stabilized

New ‘Embryonic’ Subduction Zone Found

Mapping Downgoing Plate Topography: The 2005 Sumatra Earthquake

A close-up image of bladed barite crystals in the Mapepe Formation in the Barberton Greenstone Belt of South Africa. Credit: Desiree Roerdink

New research uncovers continental crust emerged 500 million years earlier than...

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...

This artist’s impression shows a view of the surface of the planet Proxima b orbiting the red dwarf star Proxima Centauri, the closest star to the Solar System. The double star Alpha Centauri AB also appears in the image to the upper-right of Proxima itself. Proxima b is a little more massive than the Earth and orbits in the habitable zone around Proxima Centauri, where the temperature is suitable for liquid water to exist on its surface. (Illustration by ESO/M. Kornmesser)

Study finds a (much) earlier birth date for tectonic plates

Heat from earth’s core could be underlying force in plate tectonics

Ca-silicate inclusion inside a diamond from Kankan, Guinea. Photo credit: Margo Regier.

Superdeep diamonds provide a window on supercontinent growth

Probing the mysteries of Europa, Jupiter’s cracked and crinkled moon

How did plate tectonics start on Earth?

Stirring things up in the Earth’s mantle

The southern-central edge of the Tibetan Plateau near the border with western Nepal and the Indian state of Sikkim is pictured in this Sentinel-2A image from 1 February 2016. Credit: European Space Agency. Contains modified Copernicus Sentinel data [2016]/ processed by ESA ,CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO/Wikimedia Commons

Crucial evidence explains anomalously fast convergence between India and Asia in...

Paleogeographic scenario for the Jiachala Formation. a) Jiachala Formation, b)&c) other trench deposits to the west.

Upper Cretaceous trench deposits of the Neo-Tethyan subduction zone

The diamond from Botswana revealed to the scientists that considerable amounts of water are stored in the rock at a depth of more than 600 kilometres. Photo: Tingting Gu, Gemological Institute of America, New York, NY, USA

An ocean inside Earth? Water hundreds of kilometers down

Researchers developed a technique that allows them to study the atomic arrangements of liquid silicates at the extreme conditions found in the core-mantle boundary. This could lead to a better understanding of the Earth's early molten days, which could even extend to other rocky planets. Credit: Greg Stewart/SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory

Earth’s evolutionary tale, researchers probe materials at deep-Earth conditions

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