Magnetic crystals provide the earliest evidence yet of the plate tectonics that likely made Earth habitable, pushing its start back by 140 million years.

Direct evidence of the movements of tectonic plates has been found in some of the world’s oldest rocks, in the Pilbara Craton, Western Australia. This evidence dates back 3.5 billion years; the ...

The history of Earth is written on the great tablets of tectonic plates. The motions of plates shaped land masses, formed oceans, and created the varied climates and habitats that set the stage for ...

Scientists still have many questions about the earliest years of our planet. Earth formed about 4.55 billion years ago, but almost no rocks from that time have survived. Without those ancient rocks, ...