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inner core (USC Graphic/Edward Sotelo)

The Earth moves far under our feet: A new study shows...

Molten lava from a Hawaiian volcano. Image: Willyam/Adobe

Puzzling features deep in Earth’s interior illuminated

Puna Plateau (© Mitchall d'Arcy)

Which forces control the elevation of mountains?

Examining ocean floors key to minerals needed for renewable energy. Image: Supplied

Ancient ocean floors could help in the search for critical minerals

Tectonic map of the Alaska subduction zone

The link between temperature, dehydration and tectonic tremors in Alaska

One of the strombolian explosions that have occurred at Stromboli about every 10 minutes for at least 2000 years. © UNIGE, Luca Caricchi

Volcanoes at fault if the Earth slips

Creative destruction: a thinner ocean plate sides under a continental plate, melting and recycling the ocean crust into the Earth’s interior and birthing volcanoes in this illustration of subduction, a consequence of modern plate tectonics. A new study reports evidence of a transition in multiple locations around the world, 3.8-3.6 billion years ago, from stable “protocrust” to pressures and processes that look a lot like modern subduction, suggesting a time when plates first got moving. Credit: Nikolas Midttun, CC-BY

Earliest geochemical evidence of plate tectonics found in 3.8-billion-year-old crystal

Basalt mit frischen Klinopyroxenen (credit Jonas Tusch)

Sampling the deep graveyard of Earth’s earliest crust

Painting of the Mid-Ocean Ridge with rift axis by Heinrich Berann based on the scientific profiles of Marie Tharp and Bruce Heezen (1977).

Seafloor spreading has been slowing down

California’s San Andreas Fault. The “creeping” central section, subject of a new study, is in yellow. Rock samples from almost 2 miles down were taken at the San Andreas Fault Observatory at Depth, or SAFOD, marked by the red star. (Adapted from Coffey et al., Geology, 2022)

A slow-motion section of the San Andreas fault may not be...

Earth

X-ray view of subducting tectonic plates

Minerals are visible in rock samples from the coast of Oman. Scientists said these rocks may reveal new information about subduction, an important tectonic process on Earth. Credit: Joshua Garber / Penn State.

Mineral dating reveals new clues about important tectonic process

A series of earthquakes and aftershocks shook the Ridgecrest area in Southern California in 2019. Distributed acoustic sensing (DAS) using fiber-optic cables enables high-resolution subsurface imaging, which can explain the observed site amplification of earthquake shaking. Credit: Yang et al., 2022

Fiber-optic cables can produce high-resolution underground maps

The edges of Earth’s tectonic plates, centered over the Pacific Ocean. Colors indicate whether plates are scraping past (yellow), diving under (green), or pulling away (red) from one another. Study site near New Zealand marks the location of a newly forming subduction zone. Credit: Brandon Shuck/University of Texas Institute for Geophysics

How does a major subduction zone get started? It may begin...

A view of the graben, which emerged near the Holuhraun lava field in Iceland. The western boundary of the graben is seen in the foreground, in the center-right portion of the image, where the land begins to dip down. Credit: Stephan Kolzenburg

As tectonic plates pull apart, what drives the formation of rifts?

Rapid erosion of supermountains released large amounts of nutrients, which were eventually carried into the oceans. Photo: Peter Campbell

Supermountains controlled the evolution of life on Earth

Fault zone with broken rock inside stippled lines and faulting directions of each rock segment outlined by half arrows. Photo credit: Henrik Drake. Illustration: Mikael Tillberg.

How fault lines in a kitchen sink are changing what we...

Researchers used thermochronometric data from four North American locations to determine the cause of the “Great Unconformity”—a massive loss of rock about 700 million years ago. Credit: Kalin McDannell

New research strengthens link between glaciers and Earth’s ‘Great Unconformity’

The model offers new insights into how the plate subducted under Japan breaks into segments by bending and thereby crushing olivine grains on its underside. (Graphic: Taras Gerya / ETH Zurich)

Crushed resistance: Tectonic plate sinking into a subduction zone

Boudins of amphibolite layers (metamorphosed basalts) that were stretched within quartz schists (Norway). Photo credits © Haakon Fossen.

Fate of sinking tectonic plates is revealed

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