Hot springs reveal where continental plates collide beneath Tibet

In the classic example of mountain-building, the Indian and Asian continental plates crashed—and continue colliding today—to form the world's largest and highest geologic structures: the Himalayan Mountains and the Tibetan ...

Plate tectonics goes global

Today, the entire globe is broken up into tectonic plates that are shifting past each other, causing the continents to drift slowly but steadily. But this has not always been the case.

Unexpected earthquakes within continental plates pose challenges

Earthquakes that occur on "passive" continental margins, such as the August 2011 magnitude 5.8 Mineral, Virginia, earthquake, surprise people because they expect earthquakes to occur only on plate boundaries. But, in fact, ...

Jade sheds light on Guatemala's geologic 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 130 million years.

Earth's crust melts easier than previously thought

A University of Missouri study published in Nature this week has found that the Earth's crust melts easier than previously thought. In the study, researchers measured how well rocks conduct heat at different temperatures ...

The initial collision between Indian and Asian continental

The vast Tibetan Plateau, with high altitude and intense uplift, is like a holy land for Earth science researchers. It has earned a reputation as "the third pole of the world," relative to the Arctic Pole and Antarctic Pole. ...

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