Subduction zones, where one tectonic plate dives underneath another, drive the world’s most devastating earthquakes and tsunamis. How do these danger zones come to be? A study in Geology presents ...

This study is led by Prof. Zhong-Hai Li (University of Chinese Academy of Sciences). The present solid Earth is actually active, with new plates generating in the mid-ocean ridges and some old plates ...

(a) Geological units and earthquake distribution of an oceanic subduction zone. The orange shadow beneath the volcanic arc represents partially molten areas and magma channels. (b) Thermal structure ...

Our planet's lithosphere is broken into several tectonic plates. Their configuration is ever-shifting, as supercontinents are assembled and broken up, and oceans form, grow, and then start to close in ...

Several billion-year-old rocks tell the story of the planet’s transition from alien landscape to one of continents, oceans, and ultimately life A new study from scientists at Scripps Institution of ...

When an earthquake rips along the Cascadia Subduction Zone fault, much of the U.S. West Coast could shake violently for five minutes, and tsunami waves as tall as 100 feet could barrel toward shore.

A budding subduction zone offshore of Spain heralds the start of a new cycle that will one day pull the Atlantic Ocean seafloor into the bowels of the Earth, a new study suggests. Understanding how ...

Just off the Pacific Northwest coast amid record-breaking heat in 2021, researchers braved oddly cold, stormy seas to study another threat to the region — earthquakes and tsunamis. The team of about ...

Geophysicists can use a new model to explain the behavior of a tectonic plate sinking into a subduction zone in the Earth's mantle: the plate becomes weak and thus more deformable when mineral grains ...