Researchers describe zircons from the Andes mountains of Patagonia. Although the zircons formed when tectonic plates were colliding, they have a chemical signature associated with when the plates were ...

In deep Earth, rocks take up and release water all the time, and the effects can be wide reaching. Dehydration can cause rocks to crack and trigger earthquakes, and over geologic timescales, this ...

Mount Everest is astoundingly tall at 29,032 feet above sea level, besting its Himalayan neighbors by hundreds of feet. But the world’s tallest peak is still growing, scientists say, thanks in part to ...

A study suggests that the answers to how and why mountains form are buried deeper than once thought. Clues in the landscape of southern Italy allowed researchers to produce a long-term, continuous ...

In the heart of Asia, deep underground, two huge tectonic plates are crashing into each other — a violent but slow-motion bout of geological bumper cars that over time has sculpted the soaring ...

Forbes contributors publish independent expert analyses and insights. David Bressan is a geologist who covers curiosities about Earth. Based on a series of models considering how the continents were ...

Massive tectonic collisions in the tropics may have caused Earth's last three great ice ages. Before each of these ice ages, new research finds, collisions between continents and island arcs built ...

New seismic data reveals that the Indian tectonic plate is breaking apart deep beneath Tibet, in a phenomenon scientists call ...

The opening and closing of the Rocas Verdes Basin, a back-arc basin in Patagonia, as described by researchers at The University of Texas at Austin in a study published in Geology. Panels B and C ...