It’s right there in the name: “plate tectonics.” Geology’s organizing theory hinges on plates—thin, interlocking pieces of Earth’s rocky skin. Plates’ movements explain earthquakes, volcanoes, ...

Earth’s crust looks solid from the surface, but it is broken into a shifting mosaic of slabs that slowly rearrange oceans and continents. Understanding how those tectonic plates first formed is one of ...

Plate subduction and delamination, two key processes driving plate tectonics, are thought to be controlled by the buoyancy of the lithospheric mantle relative to the underlying asthenosphere. Most ...

We present a kinematic model developed from geodetic observations, topography analysis and analogue tectonic modelling results, which reveals a striking similarity between the rotational tectonic ...