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.

The emergence of plate tectonics in the late 1960s led to a paradigm shift from fixism to mobilism of global tectonics, providing a unifying context for the previously disparate disciplines of Earth ...

We often affiliate plate tectonics with earthquakes, as we are all taught in school that the shifting of plates leads to big shakes. But plate tectonics serve a far more important job to the planet ...

Along submarine mountain ranges, the mid-ocean ridges, forces from the Earth's interior push tectonic plates apart, forming new ocean floor and thus moving continents about. However, many features of ...

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 ...

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 ...

What would you put on your list of the great scientific breakthroughs of the 20th Century? General relativity? Quantum mechanics? Something to do with genetics, perhaps? One discovery that ought to be ...

The solid ground that we all live on forms a thin crust around the Earth. It’s no more than 50km thick - and it’s just the upper part of the lithosphere. Below it is the upper mantle. It’s mostly ...

Several large earthquakes have struck the Indonesian island of Lombok in the past week, with the largest quake killing at least 105 people and injuring hundreds more. Thousands of buildings are ...

The diagram below shows the structure of the earth. In geography, taking a slice through a structure to see inside is called a cross section. Continental plates are usually quite thick (between 35 to ...