Daily non-political popular news in brief.

Keeping the Earth's plates oiled

08-13-2007 · EurekAlert!

Earth's surface is a very active place; its plates are forever jiggling around, rearranging themselves into new configurations. Continents collide and mountains arise, oceans slide beneath continents and volcanoes spew.

Keywords: keeping, earth, plates, oiled, plate

« Previous | Next »

Similar news on "Keeping the Earth's plates oiled":

Plate tectonics may take a break
01-03-2008 · EurekAlert!
Plate tectonics, the geologic process responsible for creating the Earth's continents, mountain ranges, and ocean basins, may be an on-again, off-again affair. Scientists have assumed that the shifting of crustal plates has been slow but continuous over most of the Earth's history, but a new study from researchers at the Carnegie Institution suggests that plate tectonics may have ground to a halt at least once in our planet's history -- and may do so again.
Similar news · Read more »
Tectonic plates act like variable thermostat
08-13-2007 · EurekAlert!
PNAS study finds that heat loss from Earth's mantle is highly variable and depends on tectonic plate arrangement. Earth currently at relatively low level of heat loss.
Similar news · Read more »
Seismologists see Earth's interior as interplay between temperature, pressure and chemistry
10-25-2007 · EurekAlert!
Seismologists in recent years have recast their understanding of the inner workings of Earth from a relatively benign homogeneous environment to one that is highly dynamic and chemically diverse. This new view of Earth's inner workings depicts the planet as a living organism where events that happen deep inside can affect what happens at its surface, like the rub and slip of tectonic plates and the rumble of the occasional volcano.
Similar news · Read more »
Seismologists measure heat flow from Earth's molten core into the lower mantle
11-23-2006 · EurekAlert!
For the first time, scientists have directly measured the amount of heat flowing from the molten metal of Earth's core into a region at the base of the mantle, a process that helps drive both the movement of tectonic plates at the surface and the geodynamo in the core that generates Earth's magnetic field.
Similar news · Read more »
Design the first map of active faults in the Gibraltar Arc to prevent earthquakes
02-05-2008 · EurekAlert!
Researchers from the University of Granada characterised the physical and mechanical properties of the Earth's crust of this area of intense seismic activity. The African and Eurasian plates get about 4 mm closer every year. The study related the temperature of the Earth's crust to its seismic activity, determining that the probability of earthquakes is significantly lower in areas of higher temperature. Results were published in the Journal of Geophysical Research and Tectonics.
Similar news · Read more »
Complex structure observed in Tonga mantle wedge has implications for the evolution of volcanic arcs
04-12-2007 · EurekAlert!
The subduction zones where oceanic plates sink beneath the continents produce volcanic arcs such as those that make up the "rim of fire" around the Pacific Ocean. Although geologists have a pretty good picture of the processes that produce volcanic arcs, a new study finds that the structure of the mantle wedge above the subducting plate may be far more complex than anyone had imagined.
Similar news · Read more »
December Geology and GSA Today media highlights
11-29-2007 · EurekAlert!
Topics include: onset of plate tectonics on Earth; Arctic Ocean's role in the global climate system; cause of the end-Permian mass extinction; Olduvai Basin lake cycles and survival of early hominins; an ancient mantle plume and the break-up of Rodinia; relationship between earthquakes and melting glaciers; monitoring Mt. Etna gas composition and eruption forecasting; and cause of the end of the PETM. The GSA TODAY science article examines Colorado citizen involvement in geoscience research.
Similar news · Read more »
MU researcher to study volcanism with under-ocean sensors
02-05-2007 · EurekAlert!
Earthquakes and volcanic activity occur when the tectonic plates that make up Earth's surface move apart or converge. While this activity is relatively easy to observe on land, it’s more difficult to observe under the ocean, where most of it occurs. A University of Missouri-Columbia researcher will soon undertake a study to learn more about this process by placing sensors on a mid-ocean ridge called the East Pacific Rise.
Similar news · Read more »
Scripps/UCSD geophysicist among international team finding evidence of first plate tectonics
03-22-2007 · EurekAlert!
Identification of the oldest preserved pieces of Earth's crust in southern Greenland has provided evidence of active plate tectonics as early as 3.8 billion years ago, according to a report by an international team of geoscientists in the March 23 edition of Science magazine.
Similar news · Read more »
Earth's Moving Crust May Occasionally Stop
01-09-2008 · Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI)
The motion, formation, and recycling of Earth's crust—commonly known as the theory of plate tectonics—have long been thought to be continuous processes. But new research by geophysicists suggests that plate tectonic motions have occasionally stopped in Earth's geologic history, and may do so again.
Similar news · Read more »