Forbes contributors publish independent expert analyses and insights. I cover aerospace, astronomy & hosted The Cosmic Controversy Podcast. An earth-like planet’s ability to globally recycle its ...

If you buy something using links in our stories, we may earn a commission. Learn more. Earth’s fractured carapace of rigid, interlocking plates is unique in the solar system. Scientists increasingly ...

Generally speaking, it’s easy enough to make sense of the last few million years of climate patterns—the world looked much as it does today, so changes in greenhouse gas concentrations or ocean ...

The emergence of plate tectonics in the late 1960s led to a paradigm shift from fixism to mobilism of global tectonics, providing a unifying context for the previously disparate disciplines of Earth ...

This study is led by Prof. Yong-Fei Zheng at University of Science and Technology of China. It focuses on the development of tectonic processes along convergent plate margins through inspection of ...

The chemical and thermal history of the Earth enabled the reactions required to create the building blocks of life. Our nitrogen-rich atmosphere, for example, is critical for chemical reactions that ...

Without plate tectonics, our planet wouldn’t have continents, mountains, and possibly even life itself. New evidence suggests this geological process began at least 3.2 billion years ago, a ...

Geologists think early Earth may have looked much like Iceland—where jet-black lava fields extend as far as the eye can see, inky mountainsides rise steeply above the clouds and stark black-sand ...

The Earth's plates jostle about in fits and starts that are punctuated with earthquakes and volcanic eruptions. 4 min read There are a few handfuls of major plates and dozens of smaller, or minor, ...

Along submarine mountain ranges, the mid-ocean ridges, forces from the Earth's interior push tectonic plates apart, forming new ocean floor and thus moving continents about. However, many features of ...

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