Geoscientists from the University of Toronto have made a breakthrough discovery that adds new dimensions to the theory of plate tectonics. Their research, published in Geophysical Research Letters, ...

The Pontus oceanic plate that was reconstructed by Suzanna van de Lagemaat: its location in the paleo-Pacific ocean 120 million years ago, and its present relicts. An earlier study showed that a large ...

New crust is continually being pushed away from divergent boundaries (where sea-floor spreading occurs), increasing Earth's surface. But the Earth isn't getting any bigger. What happens, then, to keep ...

(a) Geological units and earthquake distribution of an oceanic subduction zone. The orange shadow beneath the volcanic arc represents partially molten areas and magma channels. (b) Thermal structure ...

South of New Zealand in the Tasman Sea is a stretch of stormy ocean where the waves regularly swell 20 feet (6 meters) or more and the winds blow at 30 mph (48 km/h) on a good day. Deep below these ...

For millions of years, Earth’s moving plates have sculpted continents, carved oceans, and built massive mountain ranges. Yet some of these giant structures vanished deep into the mantle, hidden from ...

An international research collaboration has harnessed supercomputing power to better understand how massive slabs of ancient ocean floors are shaped as they sink hundreds of kilometers below Earth's ...