Scientists have taken a journey back in time to unlock the mysteries of Earth’s early history, using tiny mineral crystals called zircons to study plate tectonics billions of years ago. The research ...

Using information from inside the rocks on Earth’s surface, my colleagues and I have reconstructed the plate tectonics of the planet over the last 1.8 billion years. It is the first time Earth’s ...

Seismic waves from earthquakes have always offered a window into Earth’s hidden interior. For decades, researchers believed they had a firm grasp on how these waves revealed the rocky mantle’s secrets ...

It's the first time Earth's geologic record — information found inside rocks — has been used to create an animation of this kind. When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate ...

Plate tectonics can trigger ice ages through the production of the carbon-trapping mineral smectite, according to a new study. MIT geologists have found that a clay mineral on the seafloor, called ...

Forbes contributors publish independent expert analyses and insights. David Bressan is a geologist who covers curiosities about Earth. Oct 29, 2025, 03:16pm EDT Nov 01, 2025, 01:11pm EDT For the first ...

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 ...

Earth’s crust looks solid from the surface, but it is broken into a shifting mosaic of slabs that slowly rearrange oceans and continents. Understanding how those tectonic plates first formed is one of ...

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