It’s right there in the name: “plate tectonics.” Geology’s organizing theory hinges on plates—thin, interlocking pieces of Earth’s rocky skin. Plates’ movements explain earthquakes, volcanoes, ...

In 2021, geologists animated a video that shows how Earth's tectonic plates moved over the last billion years. The plates move together and apart at the speed of fingernail growth, and the video ...

Some great ideas shake up the world. For centuries, the outermost layer of Earth was thought to be static, rigid, locked in place. But the theory of plate tectonics has rocked this picture of the ...

Scientists have discovered a new layer of partly molten rock under the Earth's crust that might help settle a long-standing debate about how tectonic plates move. Researchers had previously identified ...

For millions of years, Earth’s moving plates have sculpted continents, carved oceans, and built massive mountain ranges. Yet some of these giant structures vanished deep into the mantle, hidden from ...

Slow earthquakes are long-period earthquakes that are not so dangerous alone, but are able to trigger more destructive earthquakes. Their origins lie in tectonic plate boundaries where one plate ...

Venus, a scorching wasteland of a planet according to scientists, may have once had tectonic plate movements similar to those believed to have occurred on early Earth, a new study found. PROVIDENCE, R ...

The tectonic plates are among the most powerful forces on Earth, exerting tremendous influence over every single life that unfolds on this planet. They are both creators and destroyers, capable of ...

From space, the Iberian Peninsula – primarily occupied by Spain and Portugal – looks like an immovable solid block of land anchoring southwestern Europe. But beneath that apparent stability, the ...

Scientists have reconstructed a long-lost tectonic plate that may have given rise to an arc of volcanoes in the Pacific Ocean 60 million years ago. The plate, dubbed Resurrection, has long been ...