When most of us think about what shaped our planet, we probably picture volcanoes, earthquakes, and huge continents slowly drifting apart (or back together again) over millions or billions of years.

The Earth’s crust is constantly changing. It’s currently made of many huge rock slabs called tectonic plates—seven major ones along with many more smaller plates—that fit together like puzzle pieces ...

The puzzle pieces of Earth’s rocky crust are slowly and steadily moving — a process known as plate tectonics. These dynamic movements helped to create the habitats and climate that fostered the ...

Fresh evidence suggests early Earth wasn’t locked under a rigid stagnant lid but was already experiencing intense subduction. Ancient melt inclusions and advanced simulations point to continents ...

Vanishing lakes in southern Tibet may have triggered earthquakes in the region by "awakening" long-dormant faults in Earth's crust, researchers say. The finding adds to evidence of an unexpectedly ...

Stanford researchers have created the first-ever global map of a rare earthquake type that occurs not in Earth’s crust but in our planet’s mantle, the layer sandwiched between the thin crust and Earth ...