Around the Balkan Peninsula, the African plate is sinking beneath the European plate. A piece of deeply submerged African crust resurfaced 40 million years ago far away from the sinking zone. How this ...

New research reveals the Indian tectonic plate beneath the Himalayas is not a solid slab but is warping and tearing. This internal breaking and delamination, particularly in the eastern Himalayas, ...

For millions of years, Earth’s moving plates have sculpted continents, carved oceans, and built massive mountain ranges. Yet some of these giant structures vanished deep into the mantle, hidden from ...

On Earth, the land moves. Over millions of years, continents shift and the entire surface of the planet reshapes itself. The driver of all this is plate tectonics: Earth’s surface is divided into ...

It's quick and easy to access Live Science Plus, simply enter your email below. We'll send you a confirmation and sign you up for our daily newsletter, keeping you up to date with the latest science ...

Scientists analyzing seismic data from southern Tibet discovered that the Indian tectonic plate is fragmenting as it subducts beneath the Eurasian plate, reshaping our understanding of the forces ...

Earth's surface is a turbulent place. Mountains rise, continents merge and split, and earthquakes shake the ground. All of these processes result from plate tectonics, the movement of enormous chunks ...

James is a published author with multiple pop-history and science books to his name. He specializes in history, space, strange science, and anything out of the ordinary.View full profile James is a ...

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 ...

Ancient plate tectonics in the Archean period differs from modern plate tectonics in the Phanerozoic period because of the higher mantle temperatures inside the early Earth, the thicker basaltic crust ...