A hidden chunk of an ancient tectonic plate is stuck to the Pacific Ocean floor and sliding under North America, complicating ...

Mountain building, also known as orogenesis, is a geological process that involves the formation and uplift of large, elevated landforms, known as mountains. The term "orogenesis" comes from Greek ...

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 ...

A new study introduces a novel way for tectonic plates — massive sheets of rock that jostle for position in the Earth’s crust and upper mantle — to bend and sink. It’s a bit of planetary Pilates that ...

PORTLAND, Ore. (KOIN) — Beneath our feet, the ground is moving. Of course not very fast, but, geologists say the North American Plate is moving about an inch a year. Not only are we slowly moving, but ...

On September 7, 2017, a magnitude 8.2 earthquake struck southern Mexico, killing dozens and injuring hundreds. While earthquakes are common enough in the region, this powerful event wasn’t any ...

Along submarine mountain ranges, the mid-ocean ridges, forces from the Earth's interior push tectonic plates apart, forming new ocean floor and thus moving continents about. However, many features of ...

Gear-obsessed editors choose every product we review. We may earn commission if you buy from a link. Why Trust Us? Two opposite types of faults, normal and reverse, help explain our undersea mountain ...

Rock rheology governs the deformation of rocks in reaction to forces within the Earth's interior. Rheology is the scientific ...

The Carrizo Plains provides good visibility of the San Andreas Fault in southern California. On Earth, the motion along faults is driven by plate tectonics, powered by convection of the planet’s ...