"The only way we could chart the seafloor was by throwing heavy things downward. Everything that lay beneath a few miles of water might as well have been on the moon."

Elise Cutts for Pioneer Works Broadcast: https://pioneerworks.org/broadcast/picture-this-tectonic-plates-marie-tharp-elise-cutts

If there was a Nobel prize for science comedy, Elle Cordova would win it for this geological meet cute

C: @ellecordova on IG

1.8 billion years of tectonic plates dance across Earth’s surface in a new animation
https://theconversation.com/witness-1-8-billion-years-of-tectonic-plates-dance-across-earths-surface-in-a-new-animation-238209 v @TheConversationUS
#geology #PlateTectonics #Earth #Pangaea #Gondwana #Rodinia #Nuna

In less than 10 million years, California could be an island offhore of North America, and the new coastline might be in Nevada. Geologists are studying an extensive series of earthquake faults in western Nevada to determine whether parts of western North America might be starting to wander off.

#PlateTectonics #earthquakes #NorthAmerica #seismology #geophysics

https://www.unr.edu/nevada-today/nevada-stories/walker-lane

Quebec has industrial quantities of kyanite -although I don't think any are being mined today. They're in the Grenville, the roots of the Himalayan-scale mountains formed over a billion years ago. The screenshot below is from MinDat: https://www.mindat.org/locentries.php?p=14009&m=2303

The Ministère has an awkwardly translated page "Mineral Substances in Quebec" that includes Kyanite in its list of wealth:
https://gq.mines.gouv.qc.ca/portail-substances-minerales_en/

Witness 1.8 Billion Years Of Tectonic Plates Dance Across Earth’s Surface In A New Animation
--
https://theconversation.com/witness-1-8-billion-years-of-tectonic-plates-dance-across-earths-surface-in-a-new-animation-238209 <-- shared article
--
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gsf.2024.101922 <-- shared paper
--
https://youtu.be/_LJG68AmZxI?si=BBBDZg8Qn7DPy2WV <-- shared animation
--
#GIS #spatial #mapping #model #modeling #geology #structuralgeology #global #earth #tectonics #tectonicplates #platetectonics #Gondwana #continents #spatiotemporal #Pangaea #Rodinia #Nuna #supercontinent #animation #video #reconstruction

This is a nice write-up of how plate tectonics may have got going on Earth: a progressive development over a couple of billion years, from no plate boundaries, to localised and intermittent ones, to a full planetary system, makes a lot of sense. It would also explain why different lines of evidence produce such different start dates: it's a convolution of a fragmentary and intermittent process and a fragmentary and intermittent geological record.
#geology #PlateTectonics

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-024-02602-3

New Study Refutes Leading Theory of Continent Formation
https://www.sci.news/othersciences/geoscience/continent-formation-theory-13152.html# geology #continents #PlateTectonics

Ancient crystals point to a surprisingly early start for plate tectonics
https://www.science.org/content/article/ancient-crystals-point-surprisingly-early-start-plate-tectonics #EarthScience #geohistory #zircon #PlateTectonics

If you blew up a nuke in the earths crust below the ocean, could you make a hole big enough that magma would flow out and create an island like Hawaii

Asking for a friend

No, this big swarn of earthquakes happening under the Pacific Ocean west of Canada's Vancouver Island isn't a sign that a big subduction quake is imminent. But the tremors do mean that scientists are about to get a good look at how new crust forms as the sea floor spreads on a mid-ocean ridge.

#geology #geophysics #PlateTectonics #SeafloorSpreading #MidoceanRidges #PacificOcean #volcanism

https://www.livescience.com/planet-earth/earthquakes/2000-earthquakes-in-1-day-off-canada-coast-suggest-the-ocean-floor-is-ripping-apart-scientists-say

Mars Had its Own Version of Plate Tectonics
https://www.universetoday.com/165919/mars-had-its-own-version-of-plate-tectonics/ #astronomy #Mars #PlateTectonics

Mars experienced a precursor to plate tectonics - Enlarge / Ridges and basins in the Eridania Basin on Mars. (credit: NAS... - https://arstechnica.com/?p=2003262 #planetaryscience #platetectonics #astronomy #volcanoes #science #mars

Your #geology lesson for today:
The Earth's crust is fragile in tension/shear & spins faster at the poles than the equator (centrifugal force). The crust spins slower than the molten core (CF) & therefore is riddled with long, continuous, north-south, east-west trending fractures. A spinning molten ball differentiated via centerfuge, the outside frozen & breaking/sliding on that liquid surface (#platetectonics).
Some of this is controvertial....
But look at Google Earth -> Pacific

Plate tectonics in the Archean: Observation versus interpretation
https://phys.org/news/2024-01-plate-tectonics-archean.html #PlateTectonics #Archean #Precambrian #Phanerozoic

Large parts of eastern Europe and western Asia used to be covered by a freshwater lake bigger than the Mediterranean.

#PaleoOceanography #ParatethysSea #geology #fossils #PlateTectonics

https://www.science.org/content/article/rise-and-fall-world-s-largest-lake

Tasmania's geology is more closely related to that of North America and Antarctica than it is to the rest of Australia. Seriously.

This video shows how geologists think that this seemingly unlikely situation came about.

#Tasmania #Australia #PlateTectonics #ContinentalDrift #geology

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_f_Hcyfv5rU

Very cool chevron fold in a gray shale cliff at Hartland Quay, Devon, UK. The rock is about 320 million years old.

I couldn't tell the scale from this pic, but I was able to find another photo that had a human in it. That cave opening looks to be around 10 ft/3 m high.

Lots more info on this site here: https://www.geolsoc.org.uk/Policy-and-Media/Outreach/Plate-Tectonic-Stories/Hartland-Quay

Photo: K. Read.

Go, #science ! #platetectonics Long-lost part of #earth that disappeared 20 million years ago has been discovered https://www.unilad.com/news/world-news/science-discovery-reconstruction-plate-tectonic-pontus-883539-20231013