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The mantle upwelling beneath the Afar rift may be influenced by tectonic processes in the overriding lithospheric plates that shape the distribution of both the compositional heterogeneities and abundance of melt, according to a geochemical and statistical study of volcanic samples.

Shatter cones in rocks in the Pilbara craton provide unequivocal evidence for oldest known impact crater on Earth, which struck 3.5 billion years ago.

Analysis of ground motion velocity measurements recorded close to the Narli splay fault indicates an early transition to supershear rupture during the 2023 Kahramanmaraş earthquake.

The mountain ranges of northeast Japan were formed by the Ryukyu/Izu–Bonin–Marianas same-dip double subduction system in a process that may have driven other non-collisional orogens, according to geologically constrained three-dimensional geodynamic simulations.

Metamorphic soles beneath ophiolites record rapid subduction initiation, with high-temperature metamorphism that may be driven by relative motion across the plate interface, according to diffusion speedometry of garnets combined with isotopic data.

The 2.71-2.17 Ma apparent polar wander paths of Wyoming and Superior provide indicated relative horizontal motion during the Neoarchean. Together with other tectonic proxies, the data support plate mobilisation in operation prior to 2.5 Ga.

Subducted slabs may experience transient weakening during mineral phase transitions, consistent with slab stagnation in the mantle transition zone, according to a synchrotron beamline study of the quartz-to-coesite and olivine-to-ringwoodite phase transitions.

The high oxygen fugacities and water contents recorded by zircons from Archaean granitoids can be explained by partial melting at the base of overthickened oceanic crust without requiring subduction, according to a phase equilibrium modelling study.

Spatially distinct ice-sheet growth on the Antarctic Peninsula through the Pleistocene was the result of dynamic topography and pre-glacial landscape evolution, not climate, according to a palaeotopographic reconstruction and ice-sheet modelling.

Study reveals coeval rapid uplift and normal faulting along the Central Anatolian Plateau’s southern margin. U-Th dating of fault-related calcites deciphers active deformation above the Cyprus Subduction, linking deep mantle and surface processes.

Large slow slip earthquakes and tremor occur in subduction zones near the locked megathrust. Combined analysis of changes in slab seismicity and stress field near the times of such slow slip events highlights the role of fluid in promoting slow slip.

Geochemistry and geochronology show that Samoa and Rurutu–Arago are the longest-lived Pacific hotspots, providing better constraints on plate rotation and support for a link between the Louisville volcanic track and the Ontong Java Nui Plateau.

Why Earth’s crust only started becoming widely preserved in the Eoarchaean, 500 Ma after planetary accretion, is poorly understood. Here, the authors document a shift to juvenile magmatic sources in the early Eoarchaean, linking crustal preservation to the formation of stabilising melt-depleted mantle.

Oceanic detachment faults play a central role in accommodating the plate divergence at mid-oceanic ridges. Here, the authors show micro-seismicity of a nearly-amagmatic flip-flop detachment fault system at the ultraslow spreading Southwest Indian Ridge.

An early Holocene sea-level curve based on data from the North Sea reveals two phases of accelerated sea-level rise owing to meltwater from the North American and Antarctic ice sheets.

The drying out of the Aral Sea has induced flow of the relatively weak asthenosphere beneath, demonstrating that human activity can influence mantle dynamics, according to numerical simulations of ground uplift measured by radar interferometry.

The rupture area of the 2014 Iquique earthquake offshore northern Chile was spatially limited to a region where the plate boundary is non-reflective in seismic images, indicative of low fluid pressure. In contrast, north and updip of the rupture area, a coherent highly reflective plate boundary indicates excess fluid pressure, which may inhibit strain accumulation, while strain release in the non-reflective rupture area occurs during large earthquakes.

Slow slip events have been observed in different subduction zones, but their relationship to megathrust earthquakes remains elusive. Here, the authors postulate that a transient event may have led to the 2011 Tohoku earthquake as the hypocentre falls within a zone of positive Coloumb stress change.

Sedimentation along convergent plate margins, the destructive sites of tectonic plate collision, is poorly understood. Malatestaet al.use a cutting-edge three-dimensional subduction model to demonstrate that the trench-parallel motion of sediments has a much more important role than previously thought.

Tibetan plateau deformation is variable, but what controls those variations is still poorly understood. Here, the authors use 3D numerical models to show that the variations observed in lithosphere deformation are controlled by heterogeneities in the strength of the Asian continental crust.

The evolution of continental rifting curvature can be studied using thermal convection models. Studying how this curvature controls the subsidence of offshore basins, Sacek and Ussami find that the mantle viscosity structure affects the subsidence rate and evolution of sedimentary basins along curved margins.

How the Tibetan Plateau arrived at its present size and elevation remains a topic of debate. Here, the authors use drill-hole and seismic data from the Tarim basin and conclude that plateau extension was episodic and synchronous along eastern and northern margins, likely occurring via brittle thickening of the upper crust.

Deep tectonic processes are considered to be responsible for stress loading of faults over a seismic cycle. Here, the authors use a mechanical model to demonstrate that erosion also significantly influences the stress loading of faults on this short time scale, potentially leading to fault failure and earthquakes.

Slow earthquakes, where fault slip is slow, can be large and may help trigger regular earthquakes, but the mechanics of slow slip are not fully understood. Leeman et al.show through laboratory experiments that slow slip behaviour on faults is controlled by the frictional dynamics of the surrounding material.

Mantle flow induced by slab detachment plays a key role in regulating plate convergence, with spreading ridges and continent-trench collisions causing significant tectonic uplift and acceleration of plate motion, according to numerical modelling of lithosphere-mantle dynamics.

This paper shows that faults comprised of heterogeneously distributed materials, as is typical for tectonic faults in nature, are weaker and more unstable than equivalent faults where the materials are homogeneously mixed together.

Back-arc spreading centre jumps have been suggested to be controlled by a number of different drivers. Here, the authors, using 3D numerical models, show that transform faults can trigger back-arc spreading centre jumps, without the need of any ad hoc factors.

Drip-like features imaged in a seismic tomography model are consistent with extensive ongoing thinning of cratonic lithosphere beneath North America.

Pluto’s subsurface ocean may have formed early due to accretionary heating, a comparison of thermal evolution modelling with observed tectonic structures suggests.

Modelling of Mead Basin, the largest impact feature on Venus, shows that it could only have got its shape, with the two ring faults at the correct position, if Venus were in a stagnant lid regime at the time of Mead Basin formation, between 0.3 and 1 billion years ago.

Spatially varying uplift rates strongly influence the concavity of river profiles worldwide, with smaller contributions from hydrological factors, according to a comparison of river profile, tectonic and climatic datasets.

Increased river incision and landscape erosion can be attributed to late Cenozoic cooling/changes in hydroclimate, according to cosmogenic isotope and luminescence ages of a sequence of bedrock terraces in the Yukon River basin.

The composition and tectonic affiliation of Earth's earliest crust remains disputed. Here, the authors find that Archean Jack Hills zircons crystallized from melts with compositions similar to andesite formed in modern subduction settings, which they suggest is consistent with an early onset of modern-style plate tectonics on Earth.

Earthquakes in the crust and mantle at transform faults are distinct yet coupled, with seismic swarms in the mantle apparently preceding large earthquakes, according to ocean-bottom seismic monitoring of the Blanco Transform Fault.

Retreating subduction zones are enabled by the development of faults at the edges of the slab, but the physical mechanisms controlling fault propagation remain debated. Here, the authors find that oceanic crust recycling is controlled by weakening of fractures forming at the edges of slabs.

Past megathrust earthquakes in the Costa Rica subduction zone have slipped all the way up to the seafloor, according to analyses of core and seismic data. This shallow slip was accommodated by layers of weak biogenic ooze.

Continental mantle lithosphere is scraped from the base of the overriding plate by the underlying oceanic slab during flat subduction, according to numerical thermal–mechanical models.

Deformation migrated from depth towards the surface in the months leading up to the 2011 Tohoku-Oki earthquake, according to analyses of satellite gravity data.

Deformation of the Indian Ocean floor over the past 8 million years was caused by a change in plate motions linked to flow of the Reunion mantle plume, according to analyses of forces upon plates.

Seismic images of giant crustal-collapse structures preserved in the Yilgarn Craton, Australia, reveal that these structures may have formed over 2.5 billion years ago when the cores of continents were hot and weak.

Impacts could have driven transient subduction events on the Hadean Earth, according to numerical simulations. The scenario reconciles evidence for tectonic activity with that for an otherwise tectonically stagnant early Earth.

After a fault ruptures, the recovery of its strength may be accelerated by earthquakes that redistribute stress, according to an analysis of temporal variation in crustal seismic velocity on the Longmenshan fault in China.

The magnitude 7.6 Izmit earthquake that struck Turkey in 1999 was nucleated by an eastward-migrating cascade of foreshocks, according to high-resolution analyses of seismic data.

The dwarf planet Ceres may have reoriented in the past due to a heterogeneously dense crust, a scenario consistent with gravity and topographic data and the distribution of crustal fractures.

Domes on the dwarf planet Ceres could form by solid-state flow of low-density, ice-rich parts of its crust—a process analogous to salt doming on Earth—according to numerical simulations.