Wilson Cycle

The Wilson cycle

August 12, 2014

Bird brain from the age of dinosaurs reveals roots of avian intelligence

Two perfectly articulated skeletons of the sheep-size dinosaur Psittacosaurus, found in China’s Yixian Formation. New research suggests they died in burrow collapses, not via volcanism, as previously thought. (Jun Liu, Institute of Paleontology and Paleoanthropology, Chinese Academy of Sciences)

Did the world’s best-preserved dinosaurs really die in ‘Pompeii-type’ events?

Reddish-brown bands of Tava sandstone cut through other rocks. (Credit: Liam Courtney-Davies)

Was ‘Snowball Earth’ a global event? Study delivers best proof yet

The research findings hint at vast rivers of glacial water rushing like a reverse tsunami from the land into the sea, then pooling on top of extra salty, extra dense ocean water. Photo courtesy of AdobeStock.

New trigger proposed for record-smashing 2022 Tonga eruption

Herrerasaurus ischigualastensis is an early saurischian dinosaur. It shared a bipedal, running anatomy common to large carnivorous dinosaurs that would evolve in the future, but this dinosaur lived at a time when dinosaurs were small-bodied and rare. Credit: Kristina Curry Rogers (illustration by Jordan Harris, CC-BY 4.0 (creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)

Early dinosaurs grew up fast, but they weren’t the only ones

A cut slice of altered mantle rock. (Photo by: Solvin Zankl)

Researchers studying ocean transform faults, describe a previously unknown part of the geological carbon cycle

Ancient plate tectonics in the Archean period differs from modern plate tectonics in the Phanerozoic period because of the higher mantle temperatures inside the early Earth, the thicker basaltic crust, and the non-depletion of melt-mobile incompatible trace elements in the mantle. Credit: Science China Press

Plate tectonics in the Archean: Observation versus interpretation

Mesozoic mural depicting different ocean species that have evolved through time. [Credit: Smithsonian Institution]

Scientists discover 36-million-year geological cycle that drives biodiversity

Researchers doing fieldwork in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. Credit: Stuart Gilfillan

Rare gas find solves African landscape puzzle

A view from the “Kimberley” formation on Mars taken by NASA’s Curiosity rover.

Ice-squeezed aquifers might create marsquakes

Bismuth Crystal “Artificially grown bismuth crystal”

Incredible moment Anak Krakatau erupts, Oct 2018

The Wilson cycle begins in Stage A with a
stable continental craton. A hot spot (not present in the drawings) rises up under the craton, heating it, causing it to swell upward, stretch and thin like taffy, crack, and finally split into two pieces. This process not only splits a continent in two it also creates a new divergent plate boundary.