Given the enormous number of stars in the universe and the number of confirmed and postulated planets in our galaxy, it is generally agreed that our home planet Earth is not likely to be unique (e.g., Sagan, 1980; Bignami et al., 2005; Hawking and Mlodinow, 2010). But is it? Although the number of known extrasolar planets grows almost by the day, observational bias caused by the technological c...

In rift settings, the crustal stress field is dominated by extension, which leads to rift-parallel topography and basin alignments. However in some continental systems, observables of orientation principal stresses show substantial deviations from these patterns. Such rotations are currently poorly understood could reflect critical role magmatism creation topography, plate state-of-stress, volc...

Silver and Behn (Reports, 4 January 2008, p. 85) proposed that intermittent plate tectonics may resolve a long-standing paradox in Earth's thermal evolution. However, their analysis misses one important term, which subsequently brings their main conclusion into question. In addition, the Phanerozoic eustasy record indicates that the claimed effect of intermittency is probably weak.

Breccias associated with tectonic, fluid and sedimentary evolution of rifted margins can provide information on a variety processes reflecting the modes extension. In this paper, we analyse numerous breccias exposed in Agly Massif that was part European side Cretaceous rift now inverted eastern Pyrenees. Using combination petrologic sedimentologic analyses, field-based structural study, multiva...

Possible geodynamic regimes that may have prevailed in the Archean are investigated by back-tracking the thermal history of Earth from the present-day conditions. If the temporal evolution of plate-tectonic convection is modulated by strong depleted lithosphere created at mid-ocean ridges, more sluggish plate tectonics is predicted when the mantle was hotter, contrary to commonly believed, more...

New geologic mapping, morphologic fault scarp modeling, and geomorphic metrics in the Red Rock Valley, southwestern Montana, help characterize the Quaternary history of the virtually unstudied Monument Hill fault and tectonics of the youthful and seismically active Red Rock graben. Two generations of Pleistocene surface ruptures are preserved along the Monument Hill fault. Similarity in rupture...

The project Retreating-trench, extension, and accretion tectonics, RETREAT, is a multidisciplinary study of the Northern Apennines (earth.geology.yale.edu/RETREAT/), funded by the United States National Science Foundation (NSF) in collaboration with the Italian Istituto Nazionale di Geofisica e Vulcanologia (INGV) and the Grant Agency of the Czech Academy of Sciences (GAAV). The main goal of RE...

– In the North China block, Cretaceous extensional tectonics is expressed by numerous syntectonic plutons bounded by ductile normal faults and several metamorphic core complexes (MCC). Cretaceous half-grabens filled by continental terrigenous deposits are widespread. The examples of MCC from South Liaoning Peninsula, Yiwulüshan, Hohhot as well as the Yunmengshan syntectonic pluton spread along ...