The movement of the plates creates three types of tectonic boundaries: convergent, where plates move into one another; divergent, where plates move apart; and transform, where plates move sideways ...

Plate tectonics is the theory that Earth's outer layer is made up of plates, which have moved throughout Earth's history. The theory explains the how and why behind mountains, volcanoes ...

What roils beneath Earth's surface may feel a world away, but the activity can help forge land masses that dictate ocean ...

In a new paper published in Nature today ... approach one of the biggest enduring scientific mysteries: when did plate tectonics begin? Intimately connected to the development of life Earth ...

Four types of plate tectonic activity are demonstrated in this feature. Keep an eye on the map to see where in the world the activity takes place. Also known as spreading boundary, a divergent ...

Plate tectonics is geology’s Theory of Everything. The realisation in the 1960s that Earth’s crust is made of fragments ...

Learn how a computer simulation demonstrates that tectonic activity may be less slow and steady than previously thought.

"Why is Earth the only rocky planet to have plate tectonics?" said Qian Yuan, lead author of that paper and a postdoctoral fellow in geodynamics at the California Institute of Technology.