There are various explanations for how the Earth’s continents form, develop, and change but challenges remain in fully understanding the driving forces behind plate tectonics on our planet.
continents
Posted inFeatures
Cratons, Why Are You Still Here?
How have these continental relics from Earth’s early history survived the plate tectonic mixing machine?
Posted inScience Updates
Breaking Up Is Hard to Do, Especially for Continents
A decade-long research collaboration has revealed that the split between Africa and North America roughly 200 million years ago was more drawn out than previously thought.
Posted inNews
Modeling the Creation of Cratons, Earth’s Secret Keepers
Geoscientists have long been trying to answer the complicated questions of how and why Earth’s continents formed. New research suggests a solution that surprised even the investigators themselves.
Posted inEditors' Highlights
New Data from Earth’s Largest Non-Volcanic Rift Margin
Seismic reflection images combined with petrological data provide new constraints on the nature of the basement in the enigmatic Australia-Antarctic oceanic-continent transition zone.
Posted inNews
Are We Seeing a New Ocean Starting to Form in Africa?
Although shallow magma storage at Erta Ale volcano hints at a rift-to-ridge transition, the tectonic future of the Afar region is far from certain.
Posted inScience Updates
Untangling a Web of Interactions Where Surf Meets Coastal Ocean
In 2017, an ocean research team launched an unprecedented effort to understand what drives ocean currents in the overlap regions between surf zones and continental shelves.
Posted inResearch Spotlights
Very Warm Water Observed Along West Antarctic Ice Shelf
Two years of mooring observations at the edge of the continental shelf show that wind stress and upwelling control the inflow of some of the warmest water observed at an ice shelf front in Antarctica.
Posted inResearch Spotlights
Regional Metamorphism Occurs Before Continents Collide
Evidence from collision zones suggests that the high temperatures that create regional zones of metamorphic minerals occur in wide, hot back arcs prior to continental collision deformation.
Posted inResearch Spotlights
Unraveling the Origins of Australia’s Ancient Mountain Chains
New data synthesis suggests that varying rates of trench retreat along the margin of the Gondwana supercontinent were responsible for the curvature of the Tasmanide mountain chains.