Due to the radiative thermal conductivity of the mineral olivine, only oceanic plates over 60 million years old and ...

Far beneath the ocean's surface, where mountain belts rise and ancient oceanic crust lies hidden, a long-lost tectonic plate ...

New research reveals that only the oldest and fastest-sinking oceanic plates can transport water deep into Earth’s mantle, ...

Seawater penetrates into oceanic lithosphere through fractures on seafloor and migrates along faults and pores. The distribution of water governs the style of convective flow and distinct tectonic ...

Tectonic plates are massive slabs of Earth's lithosphere that float atop the semi-fluid mantle, constantly shifting and ...

The ocean floor is depicted in black, sediment in brown and hydrothermal circulation in blue. In a, heat loss is by advection; in b, by advection and conduction; and in c by conduction alone ...

The earthquake distribution on ultraslow mid-ocean ridges differs fundamentally from other spreading zones. Water circulating at a depth of up to 15 kilometres leads to the formation of rock that ...

The discovery by Indian and British scientists that the Earth's strong outer shell -- the 'lithosphere' -- within the central Indian Ocean began to deform and fracture 15.4--13.9 million years ago ...

Oceanic lithosphere disappears into trenches at a global rate of about a tenth of a square metre per second. For more information, see the following related content on ScienceDaily: ...

And a recent study suggests these rocks are hunks of oceanic lithosphere—parts of mantle and crust once beneath the sea—in this case, the Iapetus Ocean, which vanished more than 400 million years ago.

Now, a new study co-authored by Key appears to confirm the boundary zone is molten magma, at least under the ocean floor. Off the coast of Nicaragua, beneath the Cocos tectonic plate, researchers ...