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Articles on Plate tectonics

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The new map was created using data from rocks found in locations including Madagascar. Alan Collins

A map that fills a 500-million year gap in Earth’s history

You would not recognise Earth if you saw it 500 million years ago - the lands, oceans, climate and life were all very different. Scientists now have a new map of the deep history of Earth.
A satellite image of the 2004 boxing day tsunami striking the southwestern coast of Sri Lanka. Could a similar tsunami hit Australia? AAP

Making waves: the tsunami risk in Australia

Australia is surrounded by ocean, so is not immune to the effects of tsunamis. But how significant is the risk?
The recent earthquakes in Japan and Ecuador were large, but were they connected? EPA/Everett Kennedy Brown

Are the Japanese and Ecuador earthquakes related?

When two major earthquakes occur within days of each other thousands of kilometres apart, it can look like they’re connected. But are they? Here’s what the science says.
Many marine reptiles like this nothosaur went extinct at the end of the Triassic, one of five major mass extinction events on Earth. Brian Choo

Elementary new theory on mass extinctions that wiped out life

A fall in vital trace elements in our oceans could be one of the driving forces behind a number of mass extinction events during Earth’s history.
Piton de la Fournaise or “Peak of the Furnace” on Reunion Island is one of the world’s most active volcanoes, shown erupting in August 2015. AAP/NewZulu/Vincent Dunogué

Explainer: why volcanoes erupt

What happens beneath the surface before a volcano erupts? Can we predict when one will blow? And how can typhoons and melting glaciers contribute to big eruptions?
The cycles of nutrients into the oceans following the building of mountains may have been a prime driver of evolutionary change. John Long, Flinders University

Plate tectonics may have driven the evolution of life on Earth

The rise and fall of the essential elements for life could have influenced the way life evolved over many millions of years.
Volcanism, driven by plate tectonics, built Earth’s atmosphere to make a habitable planet. Simon Redfern/University of Cambridge

How the air we breathe was created by Earth’s tectonic plates

How is it that Earth developed an atmosphere that made the development of life possible? A study published in the journal Nature Geoscience links the origins of Earth’s nitrogen-rich atmosphere to the…
How many continents can you count on one hand? Chones

Continents may not have been created in the way we thought

From the 1950s until recently, we thought we had a clear idea of how continents form. Most people will have heard of plate tectonics: moving pieces on the surface of the planet that collide, pull away…
Over time, Earth’s plates went from static to dynamic. Modestas Jonauskas/Flickr

What a crack up: hefty continents got tectonic plates moving

Plate tectonics – the large-scale movement of Earth’s lithosphere or outer layers – started around three billion years ago, but how those movements started was a bit of a mystery – until today. With colleagues…
We’re learning how the earliest rocks formed, and they’re providing a pretty weird picture of the young Earth. Taran Rampersad

Keep a lid on it: the controversy over Earth’s oldest rocks

New evidence is shedding light on the processes that formed Earth’s oldest rock and mineral record – processes that influenced the early evolution of life. Over the past 30 years our knowledge of the earliest…

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