News tagged with plate motions

New force driving Earth's tectonic plates discovered

Bringing fresh insight into long-standing debates about how powerful geological forces shape the planet, from earthquake ruptures to mountain formations, scientists at Scripps Institution of Oceanography at ...

Space & Earth / Earth Sciences

created Jul 06, 2011 | popularity 4.8 / 5 (17) | comments 11 | with audio podcast

Simulations, ancient magnetism suggest mantle plumes may bend deep beneath Earth's crust

Computer simulations, paleomagnetism and plate motion histories described in today's issue of Science reveal how hotspots, centers of erupting magma that sit atop columns of hot mantle that were once though ...

Space & Earth / Earth Sciences

created Apr 02, 2009 | popularity 4.3 / 5 (12) | comments 0

New study closes in on geologic history of Earth's deep interior

By using a super-computer to virtually squeeze and heat iron-bearing minerals under conditions that would have existed when the Earth crystallized from an ocean of magma to its solid form 4.5 billion years ...

Space & Earth / Earth Sciences

created Jun 15, 2009 | popularity 4.3 / 5 (7) | comments 0

Model describes New Zealand's complex tectonic environment

At the Hikurangi fault, off the eastern coast of New Zealand's North Island, the Pacific tectonic plate sinks beneath the Australian plate. Farther south, in the Marlborough Fault System, which cuts through the country's ...

Space & Earth / Earth Sciences

created Mar 19, 2012 | popularity 3 / 5 (2) | comments 0