Map of Earth's principal tectonic plates. Earth's lithosphere. Major and minor plates. arrows indicate direction of movement at plate boundaries. Vector illustration. Billions of years ago, Earth's ...

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 ...

To learn why, where, and how earthquakes happen, you need to familiarize your students with the interior of the Earth and a model called plate tectonics. The engine behind the earthquake machine is ...

Scientists have uncovered one of the most exciting geological discoveries of the decade – the long-lost Pontus tectonic plate. This ancient “mega plate,” which once spanned an astonishing 15 million ...

Emerging evidence suggests that plate tectonics, or the recycling of Earth's crust, may have begun much earlier than previously thought — and may be a big reason that our planet harbors life. When you ...

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 ...

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 ...

Subduction zones, where one tectonic plate dives underneath another, drive the world's most devastating earthquakes and tsunamis. How do these danger zones come to be? A study in Geology presents ...

Last week, scientists released a monumental interactive catalog that tracks 94 ancient tectonic plates lurking deep within Earth’s mantle, a resource they’re calling an “Atlas of the Underworld.” ...

For decades, scientists have theorized that the movement of Earth's tectonic plates is driven largely by negative buoyancy created as they cool. New research, however, shows plate dynamics are driven ...