A unique geodetic data set from Japan’s Nankai subduction zone offers an unparalleled opportunity to study surface deformation spanning almost an entire seismic cycle.
plate tectonics
Posted inScience Updates
Deciphering the Fate of Plunging Tectonic Plates in Borneo
What happens when subduction stops? A team of scientists installed a dense seismic network in Borneo to investigate causes and consequences of subduction termination.
Posted inEditors' Highlights
Low-angle Normal Fault in Papua New Guinea is Rolling Along
Geologic and geomorphic observations of an active low-angle normal fault reveal a rolling-hinge mechanism accommodating the exhumation of a metamorphic core complex in Papua New Guinea.
Posted inScience Updates
Linking Observations and Modeling of Flat-Slab Subduction
The Center for Tectonics and Tomography: Workshop on Flat Slab Subduction; Houston, Texas, 18–20 January 2019
Posted inEditors' Highlights
Imaging an Earthquake Rupture in High Definition
New field measurements using terrestrial laser scanning provide a detailed, centimeter-scale image of surface deformation patterns caused by the Magnitude 6.6 earthquake in Norcia, Italy.
Posted inResearch Spotlights
Resolving a Cordilleran Conundrum
A novel geophysical technique documents the existence of a “missing” fault, along which major displacement could have occurred during the Cretaceous on North America’s northwest margin.
Posted inScience Updates
Project VoiLA: Volatile Recycling in the Lesser Antilles
Deep water cycle studies have largely focused on subduction of lithosphere formed at fast spreading ridges. However, oceanic plates are more likely to become hydrated as spreading rate decreases.
Posted inResearch Spotlights
Magnetic Anomalies on the Pacific Plate Reveal True Polar Wander
A new study rebuffs the standard approach to paleomagnetism and offers an updated methodology and new locations of paleomagnetic poles.
Posted inNews
Podcast: Rifts Beneath the Ocean Floor
In the latest episode of its Centennial series, AGU’s Third Pod from the Sun features the pioneering work of a deep-sea explorer.
Posted inResearch Spotlights
Ancient Faults Amplify Intraplate Earthquakes
A comparison of deformation rates from Canada’s Saint Lawrence Valley offers compelling evidence that strain in the region is concentrated along ancient structures from previous tectonic cycles.