Abstract In the central Southern Alps (N Italy) some well-preserved Permian extensional structures, that exceptionally escaped Alpine deformation, have been recently identified. Their analysis offers important insights for interpretation of post-Variscan tectonics affecting during Permian. We describe here a previously unknown fault system related to development Early Orobic Basin, where large ...

Plate tectonics is one of the major factors affecting the potential habitability of a terrestrial planet. The physics of plate tectonics is, however, still far from being complete, leading to considerable uncertainty when discussing planetary habitability. Here, I summarize recent developments on the evolution of plate tectonics on Earth, which suggest a radically new view on Earth dynamics: co...

To understand the evolution and the habitability of any rocky exoplanet demands detailed knowledge about its geophysical state and history—such as predicting the tectonic mode of a planet. Yetno astronomical observation can directly confirm or rule out the occurrence of plate tectonics on a given exoplanet. Moreover, the field of plate tectonics is still young—questioning whether we should stu...

Introduction. Previous studies of initiation of plate tectonics were concerned mostly with the present-day Earth where plate tectonics is actively occurring [1-3]. Understanding of how plate tectonics starts and can be sustained for a long time on an Earth-like planet is a different problem. Investigation of this problem began only recently [4-6]. This problem is also important for understandin...

Opening of the Japan Sea back arc basin was accompanied by extensional tectonics in drifting southwest arc. Various trends Early Miocene grabens suggest multi-directional rifting, which necessarily involved strike-slip components some basin-margin faults. However, such are not well understood. In this work we conducted a field survey Ichishi on northern side Median Tectonic Line, central Japan....

Plate tectonics is the horizontal motion of Earth’s thermal boundary layer (lithosphere) over the convecting mantle (asthenosphere) and is mostly driven by lithosphere sinking in subduction zones. Plate tectonics is an outstanding example of a self organizing, far from equilibrium complex system (SOFFECS), driven by the negative buoyancy of the thermal boundary layer and controlled by dissipati...

The long-term carbon cycle is vital for maintaining liquid water oceans on rocky planets due to the negative climate feedbacks involved in silicate weathering. Plate tectonics plays a crucial role in driving the long-term carbon cycle because it is responsible for CO2 degassing at ridges and arcs, the return of CO2 to the mantle through subduction, and supplying fresh, weatherable rock to the s...

Pull-apart basins are structural features linked to the interactions between strike-slip and extensional tectonics. Their morphology evolution determined by factors such as extension rate, basin length/width ratio, changes in direction. In this work, we investigate effect of a change plate motion direction on pull-apart basin's structure, using analogue modelling experiments with two-layer duct...

Here, the state of our knowledge regarding the interior dynamics and evolution of habitable terrestrial planets including Earth and super-Earths is reviewed, and illustrated using state-of-the-art numerical models. Convection of the rocky mantle is the key process that drives the evolution of the interior: it causes plate tectonics, controls heat loss from the metallic core (which generates the...