Forbes contributors publish independent expert analyses and insights. I cover aerospace, astronomy & hosted The Cosmic Controversy Podcast. An earth-like planet’s ability to globally recycle its ...

Plate tectonics may have played a larger role in the evolution of life on Earth than we previously thought. | Credit: ...

(Inside Science) — Shifting, slipping and colliding tectonic plates played an essential role in the emergence and evolution of life on Earth. Such tectonic activity generated volcanoes that spewed ...

From a distance, it’s not obvious that Earth is full of life. You have to get pretty close to see the biggest forests, and closer still to see the work of humans, let alone microbes. Nevertheless, ...

On present-day Earth, plate subduction continuously modifies the chemical composition of the convecting mantle, and various mantle sources linked to these processes have been widely studied. However, ...

This study is led by Prof. Yong-Fei Zheng at University of Science and Technology of China. It focuses on the development of tectonic processes along convergent plate margins through inspection of ...

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An exceptionally well-preserved skull from a fish which lived 384–382 million years ago helps explain how plate tectonics played a key role in the evolution of ancient bony fish which eventually led ...

This paper presents a new synthesis of Franciscan Complex tectonics, with the emphasis on the pre-San Andreas fault history of these rocks. Field relations suggest that the Franciscan is characterized ...

A long-lost landmass, mostly hidden beneath the waves of the South Pacific Ocean, has taken a major step toward full ...

The interiors of rocky planets and moons tend to be pretty hot compared with their surfaces. This heat, which can be caused by a number of sources — such as tidal stretching and compression, the ...