Earth’s crust looks solid from the surface, but it is broken into a shifting mosaic of slabs that slowly rearrange oceans and continents. Understanding how those tectonic plates first formed is one of ...

Earth is estimated to be 4.5 billion years old, but understanding when it evolved from a sizzling hot ball to a planet that could host life is a little more difficult. Earth is estimated to be 4.5 ...

The Earth with the upper mantle revealed. Researchers at The University of Texas at Austin have discovered a previously unknown layer of partly molten rock in a key region just below the tectonic ...

Scientists have been trying to solve the mystery of why plate tectonics works the way it does for over a hundred years. And they might have just uncovered a key to cracking it. Eons is available to ...

The Earth’s crust is made of pieces call the tectonic plates. These plates move and shift and change to the face of the planet. How do they move and how fast? Science Trek is available to stream on ...

The activity of the solid Earth – for example, volcanoes in Java, earthquakes in Japan, etc – is well understood within the context of the ~50-year-old theory of plate tectonics. This theory posits ...

NORFOLK, Va. — Fault lines are fractures or breaks in the Earth's crust where tectonic plates move past each other, often resulting in earthquakes. These geological features are classified into three ...

When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission. Earth's crust is the planet's outermost layer. It is made of solid rock and sits on top of ...

Our planet has an outer layer made up of several plates, which move relative to one another. While we may take this knowledge for granted, this theory of plate tectonics was only formulated in the ...

The Earth's mantle might not always move along in lockstep with the overlying tectonic crust—as set out in science textbooks for decades—but may instead behave differently. This is the conclusion of ...