The interiors of rocky planets and moons tend to be pretty hot compared with their surfaces. This heat, which can be caused by a number of sources — such as tidal stretching and compression, the ...

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 ...

Newly published research has revealed that compositional rock anomalies within oceanic plates caused by ancient tectonics influence the trajectory and speed of the plates as they plunge deep into ...

For millions of years, Earth’s shifting plates have shaped continents, formed oceans, and built towering mountain ranges. But some of these colossal structures have vanished into the depths of the ...

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 ...

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 ...

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 ...

New findings provide a greater understanding of plate subduction, or how tectonic plates slide beneath one another. This recycling of surface materials and volatile elements deep into the Earth's ...