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Continents breaking up and getting back together. Image credit: Naeblys / Getty Images

Researchers uncover 2.5 billion years of Earth’s continents breaking up and...

continents

Formation of supercontinents and strength of ocean tides

Cratonic lithosphere with a high-density root undergoes delamination when perturbed by mantle plumes from beneath. The removed cratonic root then thermally grows back, with its rock fabrics preserving recent mantle deformation.

Continental interiors may not be as tectonically stable as geologists think

Images of the numerical solution at the moment when a supercontinent (left, in purplish grey) begins to break up. In the image on the left, the modelled fictional planet looks much like the Earth: its surface and mantle move spontaneously, at speeds close to those observed on Earth. The distribution of the plates (some of which are large, while many are small) is also similar, as is the topography: red hues represent shallow regions of the ocean (ridges), while blue indicates the deep seafloor. The deepest blue areas correspond to subduction trenches (where a plate is sinking into the mantle). The continents are shown in translucent white (and therefore appear purplish grey).The image on the right shows warm currents (plumes) rising from the bottom of the mantle. Credit: Nicolas Coltice

What makes the Earth’s surface move?

The East African Rift System

When continents break it gets warm on Earth

Central Alps of Switzerland

Formation of the Alps: Detaching and uplifting, not bulldozing

Ancient Earth’s hot interior created ‘graveyard’ of continental slabs

Plate tectonics without jerking

Earthquake series cause uplift variations at continental margins

Case of Earth’s missing continental crust solved: It sank

A schematic summary of the effect of the convergence rate. Upper image shows a slow convergence rate allows thermal difussion and a derived reduction of slab's density (positive buoyancy). Lower image shows how a faster convergence rate increases the slab's density promoting the negative buoyancy. Credit: Kittiphon Boonma, Scientific Reports

Study explores the density of the tectonic plates and why they...

Earth

Scientists propose solution to ‘Gaia puzzle’

Isobath map of the eastern Alborán basin with the volcanic edifice location. Orange lines show the main flood paths. (Image: García-Castellanos et al, 2020, Earth-Sciences Reviews)

New pieces of evidence found in the Alborán Sea possibly related...

Satellite image of the Gibraltar Arc. Credit: NASA

Lithospheric thickening beneath the Betics and Rif mountains pulls down the...

Link identified between continental breakup, volcanic carbon emissions and evolution

Revealing Earth’s early secrets

Mysterious Midcontinent Rift is a geological hybrid

Benjamin Johnson of Iowa State University woks at an outcrop in remote Western Australia where geologists are studying 3.2-billion-year-old ocean crust. Photo by Jana Meixnerova. Photos provided by Benjamin Johnson.

Geologists determine early Earth was a ‘water world’ by studying exposed...

Subduction zones occur where one tectonic plate dives under another. New computer modeling by Magali Billen, professor of earth and planetary sciences at UC Davis, shows why earthquakes on these sinking plates cluster at certain depths and could give insight into processes deep in the Earth. (U.S. Geological Survey)

New clues to deep earthquake mystery

Questions of continental crust

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