About 150 million years ago, a massive tectonic mega-plate stretched across the Earth, spanning roughly a quarter of the size of the Pacific Ocean. Its jagged contours ran all the way through the ...

Learn about the movement of tectonic plates off the coast of northern California, a process that could incite major ...

Earthquakes and volcanism occur as a result of plate tectonics. The movement of tectonic plates themselves is largely driven by the process known as subduction. The question of how new active ...

Far beneath the ocean's surface, where mountain belts rise and ancient oceanic crust lies hidden, a long-lost tectonic plate has been brought back into view. In one of Earth's most tectonically ...

In deep Earth, rocks take up and release water all the time, and the effects can be wide reaching. Dehydration can cause rocks to crack and trigger earthquakes, and over geologic timescales, this ...

For millions of years, Earth’s moving plates have sculpted continents, carved oceans, and built massive mountain ranges. Yet some of these giant structures vanished deep into the mantle, hidden from ...

Geological processes shape the planet Earth and are in many ways essential to our planet's habitability for life. One important geological process is plate tectonics – the drifting, colliding and ...

Recent seismic research has unveiled a fascinating geological phenomenon occurring beneath the Pacific Northwest. The Earth’s crust is tearing apart, a process driven by tectonic forces in the region.

Ancient rocks on the coast of Oman that were once driven deep down toward Earth's mantle may reveal new insights into subduction, an important tectonic process that fuels volcanoes and creates ...