Due to the radiative thermal conductivity of the mineral olivine, only oceanic plates over 60 million years old and ...

Chemical fingerprints from volcanic rock offer hints of what’s happening in the mantle below the area where three rift zones ...

A spot in eastern Africa called the Afar Triangle marks the meeting point of three rift zones—lines where Earth’s crust is being rent apart. Researchers haven’t been sure exactly what drives this ...

Scientists have long wondered how Earth’s continents first formed. Now, a team of geologists from the University of Hong Kong ...

Geologists have uncovered the remains of a massive tectonic plate beneath the Pacific Ocean, a plate that had been hidden for ...

Scientists found a rhythmic mantle plume beneath Ethiopia is slowly tearing Africa apart - hinting at the birth of a new ...

A recently published study has revealed a little-known tectonic process unfolding beneath Turkey’s Central Anatolian Plateau, where part of the Earth’s crust is “dripping” deep into the planet’s ...

There are seven major tectonic plates and several smaller ones. The major plates include the Pacific, North American, Eurasian, African, South American, Antarctic, and Indo-Australian Plates ...

A tectonic plate is a massive slab of Earth’s outer shell, known as the lithosphere. These plates float on the asthenosphere, a softer, more flexible upper mantle layer. Earth’s lithosphere is ...

In plate tectonics, pancake-like chunks of brittle crust and upper mantle ride on the hotter, more mobile mantle below. New crust forms at midocean ridges, where gaps between separating plates ...

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.