Explainer: Myth-busting the Boring Billion
A thousand million years can’t all be dull, can they?
Geologists are fond of giving dramatic names to past events, such as “The Great Dying” or “Snowball Earth” or “The Ca...
tectonic plates
-
Explainer
-
Tectonic timelapse
This just in: one billion years of Earth’s history in 40 seconds.
It’s not often you can click play and watch deep time unspool before your eyes. An international team of scientists h...
-
Rain really can move mountains
Himalayan study describes dramatic impact of erosion.
Plate tectonics tends to dominate the common view of the formation of mountains: where two plates meet, rock is pushe...
-
Conversation
How planetary forces shape Earth’s surface
Geophysicists explain rocky icebergs and deep anchors.
Have you ever wondered why the Earth’s surface is separated into two distinct worlds – the oceans and large tracts of...
-
The Earth began to move 2.5 billion years ago
Rock analysis shifts the likely emergence of continental drift.
Plate tectonics on Earth began around 2.5 billion years ago, new research reveals, contradicting existing theories. T...
-
Lubricating rocks ease tectonics
Friction between the Earth’s great plates is reduced.
A theory that even its proposers describe as “counter-intuitive” could hold the key to a better understanding of the ...
-
Taking the pulse of the ancient world
Geologists find a region that pre-dates plate tectonics. Andrew Masterson reports.
A region of extreme geological stability in a remote part of Australia has been found to contain rocks so ancient the...
-
Friday profile: Life, the universe, and everything
Geophysicist Craig O’Neill studies the relationship between plate techtonics and meteorites, spur...
When asked to reflect on geophysics, his much-loved field of study, Craig O’Neill, director of the Planetary Research...
-
Why do volcanic eruptions occur?
Many things at play in triggering volcanic eruptions.
There is a lot more to volcanic eruptions than meets the eye – they are complex, diverse and caused by a multitude of...
-
Did meteorites create the Earth’s tectonic plates?
Plate tectonics and the Earth’s magnetic field were the result of massive collisions during the “...
Meteorite impacts might have kick-started the Earth’s tectonic plates and boosted the planet’s magnetic field, accord...
-
How thick is a continent? Seismic waves and diamonds hold clues
Seismologists studying the reflection of seismic waves inside the Earth have measured the thickne...
Seismologists studying the reflections of seismic waves from the thickest parts the Earth’s lithosphere (the layer th...
-
All the world’s earthquakes, 2001–2015
This video showing all the earthquakes that happened around the world from 2001 to 2015 shows wha...
Ever wondered how common earthquakes really are? The answer is very, as this incredible video shows.This animation sh...