The tiny Juan de Fuca plate is largely responsible for the volcanoes that dot the Pacific Northwest of the United States. The plates make up Earth's outer shell, called the lithosphere. (This includes ...

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

Researchers used small zircon crystals to unlock information about magmas and plate tectonic activity in early Earth. The research provides chemical evidence that plate tectonics was most likely ...

With tectonic plates bumping and grinding against each other, Earth is a pretty active planet. But when did this activity begin? A new study from Yale University claims to have found evidence that ...

For decades, the end-stage life of a subduction zone existed only in theory. Now, for the first time in geologic history, scientists are bearing witness to the Juan de Fuca Plate tearing apart and ...

The modern understanding of the plate tectonic cycle predicts that remnants of submerged plates will be found near subduction zones. However, a new high-resolution model shows that these remnants can ...

A video of a California woman exploring a place where you can physically walk between two shifting tectonic plates has captivated viewers on TikTok. The clip of the rare geological wonder, which was ...

Rocks in Australia preserve evidence that plates in Earth’s crust were moving 3.5 billion years ago, a finding that pushes back the beginnings of plate tectonics by hundreds of millions of years.

BUFFALO, N.Y. — At the boundaries between tectonic plates, narrow rifts can form as Earth’s crust slowly pulls apart. But how, exactly, does this rifting happen? Does pressure from magma rising from ...

A seamount sitting on a subducting tectonic plate off the coast of Japan and plowing its way into Earth's mantle may be at the root of several magnitude 7 earthquakes in the past 40 years. When you ...