All Articles Tagged As: continents
A new way to calculate the age of the Earth's crust has been developed by researchers from the University of Bristol and the University of St Andrews.
...> Full Article
 | The rocks of Colombia's Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta -- the highest coastal mountain on Earth -- tell a fascinating tale: Tthe mountain collides and then separates from former super-continents. Volcanoes are born and die. The mountain travels from Peru to northern Colombia and finally rotates in a clockwise direction to open up an entirely new geological basin. Smithsonian scientists were part of a four-year project to study Santa Marta's geological evolution. ...> Full Article |
During the collision of India with the Eurasian continent, the Indian plate is pushed about 500 kilometers under Tibet, reaching a depth of 250 kilometers. The result of this largest collision in the world is the world's highest mountain range, but the tsunami in the Indian Ocean from 2004 was also created by earthquakes generated by this collision.
...> Full Article
 | The North American continent is not one thick, rigid slab, but a layer cake of ancient, 3-billion-year-old rock on top of much newer material probably less than 1 billion years old, according to a new study by UC Berkeley seismologists. The new findings by Barbara Romanowicz and Huaiyu Yuan also indicate that the continent grew by addition of rock from subducting ocean floor, not by mantle plume upwelling from below. ...> Full Article |
 | Princeton University scientists have shown that, in ancient times, the Earth's magnetic field was structured like the two-pole model of today, suggesting that the methods geoscientists use to reconstruct the geography of early land masses on the globe are accurate. The findings may lead to a better understanding of historical continental movement, which relates to changes in climate. ...> Full Article |
New research helps us understand the incredible forces, oil and gas reserves hidden beneath Earth's surface
...> Full Article
Drifting of the large tectonic plates and the superimposed continents is not only powered by the heat-driven convection processes in the Earth's mantle, but rather retroacts on this internal driving processes. In doing so, the continents function as a thermal blanket, which leads to an accumulation of heat underneath, and which in turn can cause the break-up of the super-continents.
...> Full Article
The Antarctic Peninsula juts into the Southern Ocean, reaching farther north than any other part of the continent. The southernmost reach of global warming was believed to be limited to this narrow strip of land, while the rest of the continent was presumed to be cooling or stable. Not so, according to a new analysis involving NASA data. In fact, the study has confirmed a trend suspected by some climate scientists.
...> Full Article
 | Two giant plumes of hot rock deep within the earth are linked to the plate motions that shape the continents, researchers have found. The two superplumes, one beneath Hawaii and the other beneath Africa, have likely existed for at least 200 million years, explained Wendy Panero, assistant professor of earth sciences at Ohio State University. ...> Full Article |
 | Researchers have captured for the first time a geological event considered key in shaping the Earth's landscape. The first "dyking event" ever recorded within the planet's continental crust. ...> Full Article |
Study measures effects of chemical weathering on the composition of continents
...> Full Article
Ten questions driving the geological and planetary sciences were identified today in a new report by the National Research Council. Aimed at reflecting the major scientific issues facing earth science at the start of the 21st century, the questions represent where the field stands, how it arrived at this point, and where it may be headed.
...> Full Article
|