The tectonic plates are among the most powerful forces on Earth, exerting tremendous influence over every single life that unfolds on this planet. They are both creators and destroyers, capable of ...

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 ...

Sign up for CNN’s Wonder Theory science newsletter. Explore the universe with news on fascinating discoveries, scientific advancements and more. The discovery could ...

SO MUCH for slowing down as you age. Earth’s tectonic plates are moving faster now than at any point in the last 2 billion years, according to the latest study of plate movements. But the result is ...

The longstanding enigma of how tectonic plates can break Earth’s rock-hard shell may have been solved by a recent graduate student at The University of Texas at Austin who caught the Earth in the act ...

Patrice F. Rey receives funding from the Australian Research Council. Plate tectonics – the large-scale movement of Earth’s lithosphere or outer layers – started around three billion years ago, but ...

One of the oldest unsolved riddles in planetary science concerns the origin of the moon. Over a century ago, George Darwin proposed that tidal and centrifugal forces on a rapidly rotating proto-Earth ...

Life needs more than water alone. Recent discoveries suggest that plate tectonics has played a critical role in nourishing life on Earth. The findings carry major consequences for the search for life ...

University of Cambridge provides funding as a member of The Conversation UK. How is it that Earth developed an atmosphere that made the development of life possible? A study published in the journal ...

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 ...