Yale researchers have proposed a new model to explain the drop in elastic stiffness in the middle of the Earth’s continental lithosphere. Lithosphere is the stiff layer of rock that lies atop the slow ...

The plate tectonic theory has been primarily developed in three stages. (1) From continental drift and seafloor spreading to oceanic subduction, laying a physical foundation of the plate tectonic ...

Continental lithosphere is the rigid outer shell of Earth underlying continental regions, comprising continental crust and the uppermost mantle that deform together elastically on short timescales. It ...

(a) Subduction of the reconstructed northern part of the Indian plate during the late Eocene. (b) A piece of subducted Indian lithosphere was detached and then sank into the MTZ seen as fast-velocity ...

Computer models confirm that the African Superplume is responsible for the unusual deformations, as well as rift-parallel seismic anisotropy observed beneath the East African Rift System. Computer ...

An international collaboration has led scientists to new insights into the storage and dynamic transfer of carbon below thick and very old continental crust. University of New Mexico (UNM) Professor ...

“In the grand scheme of things, plate tectonics is a young theory,” says Brian Savage, a seismologist at the University of Rhode Island. “The plate-tectonic theory is 50 or 60 years old. That’s not ...