Scientists have uncovered the oldest direct evidence yet that Earth’s tectonic plates were on the move 3.5 billion years ago. By analyzing magnetic fingerprints in ancient rocks, they reconstructed ...

The arid hills of Western Australia’s Pilbara region contain the earliest evidence yet of tectonic plates sliding across Earth’s surface. Tiny magnetic crystals locked in the bedrock recorded the ...

The rocks didn't look like much from the outside. Scattered across a remote stretch of western Australia called North Pole Dome, they were ancient, weathered, and largely ignored for the better part ...

Hundreds of millions of years ago, Earth’s magnetic field behaved in a way that has long baffled scientists, showing wild and seemingly chaotic shifts unlike anything seen before or since. A new study ...