Plate tectonics, the idea that the surface of the Earth is made up of plates that move apart and come back together, has been used to explain the locations of volcanoes and earthquakes since the 1960s ...

When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission. Plate tectonics may have played a larger role in the evolution of life on Earth than we ...

The dance of the continents has been reshaping Earth for billions of years, creating the landscapes we walk on today.

Geologists think early Earth may have looked much like Iceland—where jet-black lava fields extend as far as the eye can see, inky mountainsides rise steeply above the clouds and stark black-sand ...

Ancient rocks in Greenland When and how plate tectonics started is a key question among geologists. Some researchers think it started more than 4 billion years ago, and others say it started only ...

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Remember back in fourth grade when your mind was blown that the continents and oceans are all actually moving, very slowly, and that they used to be in different forms? The theory of plate tectonics ...

This period was anything but boring. There was a time in Earth’s history that was so stable, geologists once called it the Boring Billion. But the fact is, this period was anything but boring. In fact ...

(CN) — Think the first world wide web is a recent development? Think again. Billions of years before the internet was created, a natural process involving tectonic plates became a global network that ...

It is common knowledge that the Earth's rigid upper layer called lithosphere is composed of moving plates. But just what mechanism first set plate tectonics into motion still remains a mystery.

New finding contradicts previous assumptions about the role of mobile plate tectonics in the development of life on Earth. Moreover, the data suggests that 'when we're looking for exoplanets that ...