Changes in rates of tectonic degassing may have been responsible for rapid, extreme warming during the Miocene Climatic Optimum and the long cooling period that followed.
Plate tectonics
Posted inResearch Spotlights
Researchers Produce First Artificial Icequakes
Laboratory experiments show similarities between glacier beds and tectonic faults.
Posted inResearch Spotlights
Southern California’s Crustal Motion Tells of Earthquake Hazards
Precise measurements of the Earth’s vertical surface motion help to elucidate the hazards of faults in an earthquake-prone region.
Posted inFeatures
The Bay of Bengal and the Curious Case of the Missing Rift
In a classic detective story, clues from data new and old helped researchers reveal the puzzling chain of tectonic events that followed the Early Cretaceous split between India and Antarctica.
Posted inResearch Spotlights
Steadying Mid-Ocean Ridge Spreading Rates
Researchers used an up-to-date global magnetic anomaly data set to track the history of magnetic field reversals and obtain more accurate estimates of tectonic spreading rates.
Posted inEditors' Highlights
Unexpected Oceanic Lithosphere-Asthenosphere P-wave Velocities
A peak in seismic P-wave – S-wave velocity ratios at the lithosphere-asthenosphere boundary beneath old Pacific lithosphere requires an additional property besides temperature as an explanation.
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 inEditors' Highlights
What Controls How Quickly Faults Heal?
The rates at which fault zones “heal” through secondary mineralization have been elusive, but uranium-thorium dating of calcite growth in fault-zone fractures may provide the answer.
Posted inNews
The Layered Legacy of Clyde Wahrhaftig
As the geologist’s beloved guidebook gets a digital makeover, his personal contributions to the field shed light on who he was as a scientist.
Posted inFeatures
Three Times Tectonics Changed the Climate
Fifty years after the birth of modern plate tectonics theory, a group of researchers highlights three key examples of how our planet’s shape-shifting outer layer has altered our climate.