Let's get one thing out of the way: The supervolcano below Yellowstone is not going to erupt anytime soon; neither are any of the other similar systems that geologists have identified around the world ...

Temporal evolution for the viscosity (upper row) and compositional (lower row) field of the 3D reference case showing LLSVP-sourced plume-induced subduction initiation. (a–) Model snapshots at 0 Myr ...

The dance of the continents has been reshaping Earth for billions of years, creating the landscapes we walk on today. Scientists are unlocking secrets about how plate tectonics forged our modern world ...

Around the Balkan Peninsula, the African plate is sinking beneath the European plate. A piece of deeply submerged African ...

When it comes to 3-D puzzles, Rubik's Cube pales in comparison with the latest creation from a team of geophysicists. They have just put the finishing touches on a 20-year effort to precisely describe ...

Planet Earth is situated in what astronomers call the Goldilocks Zone -- a sweet spot in a solar system where a planet's surface temperature is neither too hot nor too cold. An ideal distance from a ...

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 ...

Freelance writer Amanda C. Kooser covers gadgets and tech news with a twist for CNET. When not wallowing in weird gear and iPad apps for cats, she can be found tinkering with her 1956 DeSoto. Carole ...

A map of gravity variations on the Earth's seafloor, which mostly correspond to underwater ridges and the edges of Earth's tectonic plates. NASA Earth Observatory Plate tectonics may not be a ...

Plate tectonics is a highly complex phenomenon that underpins almost every geological process and our understanding of Earth. Increasingly sophisticated computers and statistical approaches, including ...

The emergence of plate tectonics is arguably Earth’s defining moment, the authors of a new Nature paper write. Out of all the planets we’ve looked at carefully, Earth is the only one that has a hard ...