This study is led by Prof. Zhong-Hai Li (University of Chinese Academy of Sciences). The present solid Earth is actually active, with new plates generating in the mid-ocean ridges and some old plates ...

Our planet's lithosphere is broken into several tectonic plates. Their configuration is ever-shifting, as supercontinents are assembled and broken up, and oceans form, grow, and then start to close in ...

Convergent plate boundaries, where one lithospheric plate descends beneath another, drive subduction and ultimately lead to arc-continent collision. In classical subduction settings, the downgoing ...

Forbes contributors publish independent expert analyses and insights. David Bressan is a geologist who covers curiosities about Earth. Oct 29, 2025, 03:16pm EDT Nov 01, 2025, 01:11pm EDT For the first ...

A new study, resorting to computational models, predicts that a subduction zone currently below the Gibraltar Strait will propagate further inside the Atlantic and contribute to forming an Atlantic ...

Several billion-year-old rocks tell the story of the planet’s transition from alien landscape to one of continents, oceans, and ultimately life A new study from scientists at Scripps Institution of ...

Geoscientists have discovered a new process in plate tectonics which shows that tremendous damage occurs to areas of Earth's crust long before it should be geologically altered by known plate-boundary ...

Understanding the origins of the Ring of Fire, the most seismically active place on Earth, is famously difficult as geologic evidence is destroyed in the process. Now a new study suggests that ...

An international team of researchers' analysis of minerals from the Pilbara region of Western Australia has given new insight ...

A groundbreaking study in Science Advances reveals that Earth's tectonic plates are breaking apart under the Cascadia subduction zone. Geologists from Louisiana State University and the Lamont-Doherty ...

Map highlighting the Atlantic subduction zones, the fully developed Lesser Antilles and Scotia arcs on the western side and the incipient Gibraltar arc on the eastern side. From Duarte et al., 2018.