Minerals suggest large blocks of Earth’s crust moved around as early as 3.2 billion years ago Modern plate tectonics may have gotten under way as early as 3.2 billion years ago, about 400 million ...

Long ago, Earth's outer shell cracked into pieces, which we now call tectonic plates. In a new study, scientists investigated the origins of plate tectonics and found its history rooted in Earth.

Plate tectonics give rise to Earth's mountain ranges, earthquakes and the long-term movement of continents, and may even have provided the right conditions for life on Earth. But as far as we know, no ...

New research hints that plate tectonics began earlier than 4 billion years ago — not long after Earth had formed. When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission. Here ...

Plate tectonics – the drifting of continents – may have got under way at least 3.2 billion years ago and could have played a part in the evolution of life, a study of the magnetism of ancient rocks ...

Computer simulations suggest that a collision with another planetary object early in Earth’s history may have provided the heat to set off plate tectonics. By Lucas Joel Some 4.5 billion years ago, ...

A handful of ancient zircon crystals found in South Africa hold the oldest evidence of subduction, a key element of plate tectonics, according to a new study published in the open access journal AGU ...

On Earth, the land moves. Over millions of years, continents shift and the entire surface of the planet reshapes itself. The driver of all this is plate tectonics: Earth’s surface is divided into ...

His framework offered a new way to think about continental drift and revolutionized the study of earthquakes, volcanoes and evolution. By Clay Risen W. Jason Morgan, who in 1967 developed the theory ...

Make sure you pencil this into your long-term calendar, estimates place the death of plate tectonics here on Earth at 1.45 billion years from now. The existence of plate tectonics on Earth makes it ...