For decades, the end-stage life of a subduction zone existed only in theory. Now, for the first time in geologic history, scientists are bearing witness to the Juan de Fuca Plate tearing apart and ...

A careful analysis of the complex boundary where four tectonic plates meet reveals that one of the slabs is tearing itself ...

For the first time, scientists have seen a subduction zone actively breaking apart beneath the Pacific Northwest. Seismic ...

The Grand Canyon is a gigantic geological library, with rocky layers that tell much of the story of Earth’s history.

The shifting of tectonic plates in Central America has been poorly understood -- until now. New research on jade found along fault lines in Guatemala is helping geologists piece the puzzle of the past ...

It's time to redraw the map of the world during the reign of the dinosaurs, two scientists say. Picture the U.S. West Coast as a torturous tectonic boundary, similar to Australia and Southeast Asia ...

Plate tectonics is a feature that, as far as we know, is unique to Earth. The outer surface of our planet is divided into 15 rigid blocks of crust that push up against each other. The movement of ...

With tectonic plates bumping and grinding against each other, Earth is a pretty active planet. But when did this activity begin? A new study from Yale University claims to have found evidence that ...

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 ...