Category Archives: tectonics

Martian plate tectonics

Posted on December 12, 2007 by Chris Rowan

Are striped magnetic anomalies on the Red Planet evidence of ancient sea-floor spreading?
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Categories: geology, geophysics, planets, tectonics

Pictures from an undersea eruption

Posted on December 6, 2007 by Chris Rowan

Mid-ocean ridges are a fundamental component of the Earth’s tectonic engine: they mark places on the earth’s surface where two plates are moving apart, creating space for mantle rocks to move upwards, decompress, and melt. Every year, the resulting volcanic … Continue reading →

Categories: geology, tectonics, volcanoes

The Indian plate’s days as a Cretaceous boy-racer

Posted on October 24, 2007 by Chris Rowan

Does the thickness of a tectonic plate control its speed?
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Categories: geology, geophysics, Mesozoic, paper reviews, tectonics

The heart of the fault zone

Posted on October 6, 2007 by Chris Rowan

For all that we currently know about earthquakes and faulting, seismology remains primarily a descriptive science. We can tell where an earthquake occurred, and how powerful it was, but we still don’t understand why some ruptures trigger failure over a … Continue reading →

Categories: earthquakes, geology, tectonics