When the landmass that is now the Indian subcontinent slammed into Asia about 50 million years ago, the collision changed the configuration of the continents, the landscape, global climate and more. Now a team of Princeton University scientists has identified one more effect: the oxygen in the world’s oceans increased, altering the conditions for life. (more…)
COLLEGE PARK, Md. – Earth’s fractured outer shell is composed of giant plates of solid rock that move —grinding together, sliding past or dipping beneath one another to create the mountain ranges and other major surface features of our planet and generating earthquakes, volcanoes, tsunamis and other powerful events. However, Earth’s surface has not always experienced these “plate tectonics” and questions about when this began and how it has changed through time have been much debated by scientists. (more…)
Washington, DC— Reservoirs of oxygen-rich iron between the Earth’s core and mantle could have played a major role in Earth’s history, including the breakup of supercontinents, drastic changes in Earth’s atmospheric makeup, and the creation of life, according to recent work from an international research team published in National Science Review. (more…)
New research resolves 40 years of debate on the strength of olivine, the most abundant mineral in the Earth’s mantle
University of Delaware professor Jessica Warren and colleagues from Stanford University, Oxford University and University of Pennsylvania, reported new data that material size-effects matter in plate tectonics. (more…)
For decades, scientists have theorized that the movement of Earth’s tectonic plates is driven largely by negative buoyancy created as they cool. New research, however, shows plate dynamics are driven significantly by the additional force of heat drawn from the Earth’s core. (more…)
Geology professor’s study of olivine provides new data set for understanding plate tectonics
Plate tectonics, the idea that the surface of the Earth is made up of plates that move apart and come back together, has been used to explain the locations of volcanoes and earthquakes since the 1960s. (more…)
A low level of atmospheric oxygen in Earth’s middle ages held back evolution for two billion years, raising fresh questions about the origins of life on this planet.
New research by the University of Exeter explains how oxygen was trapped at such low levels. (more…)
The Earth’s outer layer is made up of a series of moving, interacting plates whose motion at the surface generates earthquakes, creates volcanoes and builds mountains. Geoscientists have long sought to understand the plates’ fundamental properties and the mechanisms that cause them to move and drift, and the questions have become the subjects of lively debate.
A study published online Feb. 27 by the journal Science is a significant step toward answering those questions. (more…)
