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 ...

It's one of many unique things about Earth: Unlike every other known planet in the universe, Earth's surface is made up of rigid plates that shift, crash into each other and dive into the planet's ...

Earth’s outer shell suffered a catastrophic break on 6 February last year, when a major fault came to life in southern Turkey. The Anatolian peninsula suddenly lurched to the southwest by as much as ...

The colossal movements of tectonic plates shape our world, influencing the composition of Earth’s atmosphere, the planet’s protective magnetic field and perhaps even the flourishing of life. Now ...

Scientists have uncovered the oldest direct evidence yet that Earth’s tectonic plates were on the move 3.5 billion years ago. By analyzing magnetic fingerprints in ancient rocks, they reconstructed ...

Earth is the only known planet which has plate tectonics today. The constant movement of these giant slabs of rock over the planet’s magma creates continents – and may have even helped create life. In ...

There are many open questions about how our planet formed 4.55 billion years ago: When did plate tectonics start? When did the Earth's mantle begin to vigorously circulate in a process called ...