Memorizing seven continents feels settled, like learning the alphabet. A new study argues the ground rules are less tidy.

Forces acting inside the Earth have been constantly reshaping the continents and ocean basins over millions of years. What Alfred Wegener published as an idea in 1915 has finally been accepted since ...

Transform boundaries neither create nor consume crust. Rather, two plates move against each other, building up tension, then releasing the tension in a sudden and often violent jerk. This sudden jerk ...

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 ...

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 ...

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.

A hidden shard of ancient crust has been detected where California’s San Andreas system collides with the Cascadia subduction zone, reshaping how I understand the tectonic engine of the West Coast.

Build mountains. Trigger volcanoes. Create new sea floor. You now have the power to change the landscape with the slightest push of your mouse. Four types of plate tectonic activity are demonstrated ...

A geologist in the US claims to have found the first strong evidence for plate tectonics on Mars by studying satellite images of a huge trough in the Martian surface. It had been thought, until now, ...