Learn about the movement of tectonic plates off the coast of northern California, a process that could incite major ...

About 150 million years ago, a massive tectonic mega-plate stretched across the Earth, spanning roughly a quarter of the size of the Pacific Ocean. Its jagged contours ran all the way through the ...

Earthquakes and volcanism occur as a result of plate tectonics. The movement of tectonic plates themselves is largely driven by the process known as subduction. The question of how new active ...

In deep Earth, rocks take up and release water all the time, and the effects can be wide reaching. Dehydration can cause rocks to crack and trigger earthquakes, and over geologic timescales, this ...

For millions of years, Earth’s shifting plates have shaped continents, formed oceans, and built towering mountain ranges. But ...

Venus, may have once had tectonic plate movements similar to those believed to have occurred on early Earth, a new study found. The finding sets up tantalizing scenarios regarding the possibility of ...

Far beneath the ocean's surface, where mountain belts rise and ancient oceanic crust lies hidden, a long-lost tectonic plate has been brought back into view. In one of Earth's most tectonically ...

In September 2025, scientists captured a phenomenon never before seen in real time: a tectonic plate actively tearing apart beneath the Pacific Northwest. A 75-kilometer rift is slicing through the ...

One earthquake by itself isn’t enough to create a new tectonic plate, even if it’s really large. New tectonic plates can form when the forces acting on the edges of an existing plate change. For ...

Geological processes shape the planet Earth and are in many ways essential to our planet's habitability for life. One important geological process is plate tectonics – the drifting, colliding and ...