Plate tectonics may be unique to Earth and may be an essential characteristic of habitable planets. Estimates for its onset range from over 4 billion years ago to just 800 million years ago. A new ...

These collisions were accompanied by mountain-building processes along the boundaries of the tectonic plates. Eventually, Vaalbara broke apart, forming a subset of smaller continents.

But Australia's Pilbara Craton, with its 3.59 billion-year-old rocks, is a vital region for understanding the origins of plate tectonics.

Scientists led by Michael Ackerson, a research geologist at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History, provide new evidence that modern plate tectonics, a defining feature of Earth and its ...

The origins of plate tectonics on Earth are hotly debated, but evidence from Australia now shows that parts of the crust ...