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.

New models that show how the continents were assembled are providing fresh insights into the history of the Earth and will help provide a better understanding of natural hazards like earthquakes and ...

Along submarine mountain ranges, the mid-ocean ridges, forces from the Earth's interior push tectonic plates apart, forming new ocean floor and thus moving continents about. However, many features of ...

Map of the Earth showing tectonic plates. Early Earth likely had no plate tectonics, but a solid outer crust with no tectonic activity covered the entire planet. After being broken up by convection ...

The map highlights in yellow the zones of the Pacific Plate that are being pulled apart by the sinking tectonic plate along the Pacific Ring of Fire.

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 ...

Using information from inside the rocks on Earth's surface, we have reconstructed the plate tectonics of the planet over the last 1.8 billion years. It is the first time Earth's geological record has ...

Tectonic plates: can’t live with them, can’t live without them. Their movements cause some of the world’s deadliest disasters, but, as you’re about to see, the alternative is much, much worse.