These continents are still on the move today. Exactly what drives plate tectonics is not known. One theory is that convection within the Earth's mantle pushes the plates, in much the same way that ...

Where convection currents push plates together, destructive plate boundaries (margins) are formed. Constructive plate margins close constructive plate marginAn area where two tectonic plates are ...

Plate tectonics describes the movement and interaction of tectonic plates on Earth's surface. This movement is driven by the very slow creeping motion of Earth's mantle, called convection, which ...

Scientists may have discovered the world's oldest arc-slicing fault in Northwestern Australia's remote deserts. The finding ...

A breakthrough study has provided the most detailed 3D look yet at the inner workings of the Tonga Subduction Zone, where ...

Since the late 1960s, when plate tectonics and slow, creeping convection of the rocky mantle became accepted, geoscientists have been debating whether convection extends from the surface to the ...

Plate tectonics is geology’s Theory of Everything. The realisation in the 1960s that Earth’s crust is made of fragments called plates—and that these plates can grow, shrink and move around ...

High-Resolution Anisotropic Tomography Reveals Mantle Flow Complexity and Slab-Plume Interactions, Redefining Subduction Zone Dynamics ...

induces mantle convection and, subsequently, drives plate tectonics. Uranium is the naturally occurring element with the highest atomic number. Its discovery in 1789 in the mineral pitchblende (or ...

Much of the crust that once existed on Earth has been destroyed in subduction zones, where one tectonic plate plunges beneath another into the mantle. The cratons, however, evaded that fate.