The interiors of rocky planets and moons tend to be pretty hot compared with their surfaces. This heat, which can be caused by a number of sources — such as tidal stretching and compression, the ...

Earth's surface is a turbulent place. Mountains rise, continents merge and split, and earthquakes shake the ground. All of these processes result from plate tectonics, the movement of enormous chunks ...

Woods Hole, Mass. — Newly published research has revealed that compositional rock anomalies within oceanic plates caused by ancient tectonics influence the trajectory and speed of the plates as they ...

An enduring question in geology is when Earth’s tectonic plates began pushing and pulling in a process that helped the planet evolve and shaped its continents into the ones that exist today. Some ...

Breakthroughs, discoveries, and DIY tips sent six days a week. Terms of Service and Privacy Policy. Despite being our closest planetary neighbor, Venus is a pretty ...

A hidden chunk of an ancient tectonic plate is stuck to the Pacific Ocean floor and sliding under North America, complicating ...

Tectonic plates are constantly in motion — shaping continents, forming mountains, and triggering earthquakes. But what if their movement suddenly accelerated? This video examines how faster plate ...

Earth surface is covered with rigid plates that move, crash into each other and dive into the planet's interior. But when did this process begin? When you purchase through links on our site, we may ...

Minerals suggest large blocks of Earth’s crust moved around as early as 3.2 billion years ago Modern plate tectonics may have gotten under way as early as 3.2 billion years ago, about 400 million ...

As giant slabs of Earth's crust collide in ultraslow motion, they create mountains, trigger earthquakes and forge new rocks. No one knows how or when this fundamental process, called plate tectonics, ...