Because of interactions with Earth's hot mantle, water-logged oceanic plates release water as they slide beneath less dense overriding plates in subduction zones. This water rises and hydrates the ...

A team of geoscientists has identified a subtle but powerful force driving mountain building and compression of Earth's crust in Japan and neighboring regions. The so-called same-dip double subduction ...

Jessica DePaolis (second from left) and the team of researchers studied and compared sedimentary core samples in Montague Island, Alaska, and found evidence that four of the past eight earthquakes ...

For the first time, scientists have seen a subduction zone actively breaking apart beneath the Pacific Northwest. Seismic data show the oceanic plate tearing into fragments, forming microplates in a ...

EUGENE, Ore. (NBC) -- When an earthquake rips along the Cascadia Subduction Zone fault, much of the U.S. West Coast could shake violently for five minutes, and tsunami waves as tall as 100 feet could ...