Exactly when and how plate tectonics started, however, is a matter of debate. Now, in a study published March 19 in the ...

Add Yahoo as a preferred source to see more of our stories on Google. Using magnetic traces from ancient pieces of Earth’s crust, researchers found that a chunk of what is now Western Australia ...

Scientists have uncovered the oldest direct evidence yet that Earth’s tectonic plates were on the move 3.5 billion years ago. By analyzing magnetic fingerprints in ancient rocks, they reconstructed ...

A new study from Harvard geoscientists reports the oldest direct evidence yet of plate motion, dating to 3.5 billion years ago. In a study published March 19 in Science, the researchers found that ...

Microscopic zircon crystals discovered in Western Australia suggest that Earth may have had continental crust as early as 4.4 billion years ago, millions of years earlier than previously thought. For ...

The arid hills of Western Australia’s Pilbara region contain the earliest evidence yet of tectonic plates sliding across Earth’s surface. Tiny magnetic crystals locked in the bedrock recorded the ...

Earth’s Ediacaran Period, roughly 630 to 540 million years ago, has always been something of a magnetic minefield for scientists. During earlier and later time periods, tectonic plates kept a steady ...

Ancient rock crystals from Australia suggest that early Earth might not have been as different as scientists had thought from the planet that exists today. Earth’s earliest history is shrouded in ...

The rocks didn’t look like much from the outside. Scattered across a remote stretch of western Australia called North Pole Dome, they were ancient, weathered, and largely ignored for the better part ...

Scientists say they have uncovered new clues in Australia about when plate tectonics began on Earth, the only known planet to have the geological process.

The colossal movements of tectonic plates shape our world, influencing the composition of Earth’s atmosphere, the planet’s protective magnetic field and perhaps even the flourishing of life. Now ...