Minerals suggest large blocks of Earth’s crust moved around as early as 3.2 billion years ago Modern plate tectonics may have gotten under way as early as 3.2 billion years ago, about 400 million ...

On Earth, the land moves. Over millions of years, continents shift and the entire surface of the planet reshapes itself. The driver of all this is plate tectonics: Earth’s surface is divided into ...

Vast amounts of sediment eroded from Earth’s continents were necessary to lubricate the wheel of plate tectonics, scientists propose. The idea offers a new angle on long-standing riddles about the ...

Scientists examining rocks older than 3 billion years discovered that the Earth's tectonic plates move around today much as they did between 2 and 4 billion years ago. The findings suggest that the ...