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 ...

Using information from inside the rocks on Earth’s surface, my colleagues and I have reconstructed the plate tectonics of the planet over the last 1.8 billion years. It is the first time Earth’s ...

It's the first time Earth's geologic record — information found inside rocks — has been used to create an animation of this kind. When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate ...

Plate boundaries are where the action is. A large fraction of all earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, and mountain building occurs at plate boundaries. It is also where most of the people on Earth live.

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 ...

A new simulation offers a different view of how the continents we live on drifted into their current configuration. By Robin George Andrews Unlike on every other rocky planet in the solar system, ...

Forbes contributors publish independent expert analyses and insights. David Bressan is a geologist who covers curiosities about Earth. Oct 29, 2025, 03:16pm EDT Nov 01, 2025, 01:11pm EDT For the first ...