Studying slow tremors has helped researchers home in on the youngest part of the Chile Triple Junction’s gap between subducting plates, which offers a window to the mantle.
plate tectonics
Posted inEditors' Highlights
Three Magmatic Pulses Helped Rifting Transform into Seafloor Spreading
A new geochronology of Mesozoic magmatism along the eastern margin of North America shows that continental breakup involved three distinct pulses of magmatism that localized extensional deformation.
Posted inEditors' Highlights
Mapping the Whereabouts of Continents
A new method integrates Interferometric Synthetic Aperture Radar (InSAR) with conventional ground geodetic networks, taking us closer to high-resolution mapping of plate motions.
Posted inEditors' Highlights
Shedding Light on the Mysteries of Deep Earthquakes
By analyzing forty deep earthquakes around the world, researchers discover the key role of a dual mechanism that allows earthquakes to grow larger and release more stress.
Posted inEditors' Vox
An Earth System Science Approach to Geophysics
With an underlying universal theme of convection, a new textbook introduces upper-level geology, geophysics, physics, and engineering students to the geophysics behind the Earth System.
Posted inEditors' Highlights
Remagnetization Illuminates Tectonic Consolidation of Megacontinents
New rock and paleomagnetic research give evidence for prolonged heating during the Cambrian-Ordovician tectonic consolidation of West Gondwanaland.
Posted inEditors' Highlights
How (Slow) Earthquakes Get Going
Non-volcanic tremor ramp up precedes slow slip in Cascadia by about a day, indicating that brittle-creeping process interactions control nucleation.
Posted inResearch Spotlights
A Seafloor Spreading Slowdown May Have Slashed Sea Levels
Between 15 million and 6 million years ago, a drop in ocean crust production may have lowered sea level by 26–32 meters.
Posted inEditors' Highlights
Skewed Subduction Shear Zones
A global reanalysis of both short- and long-term deformation clarifies how obliquity affects strain partitioning in convergent plate boundaries.
Posted inFeatures
How to Build the World’s Highest Mountain
The rocks of Mount Everest’s peak made an epic journey from seafloor to summit.