NORFOLK, Va. — Fault lines are fractures or breaks in the Earth's crust where tectonic plates move past each other, often resulting in earthquakes. These geological features are classified into three ...

Emerging evidence suggests that plate tectonics, or the recycling of Earth's crust, may have begun much earlier than previously thought — and may be a big reason that our planet harbors life. When you ...

In 2021, geologists animated a video that shows how Earth's tectonic plates moved over the last billion years. The plates move together and apart at the speed of fingernail growth, and the video ...

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 ...

Plate tectonics give rise to Earth's mountain ranges, earthquakes and the long-term movement of continents, and may even have provided the right conditions for life on Earth. But as far as we know, no ...

To learn why, where, and how earthquakes happen, you need to familiarize your students with the interior of the Earth and a model called plate tectonics. The engine behind the earthquake machine is ...

Minerals suggest large blocks of Earth’s crust moved around as early as 3.2 billion years ago Modern plate tectonics may have gotten under way as early as 3.2 billion years ago, about 400 million ...

Earth's fractured outer shell is in perpetual motion. While usually imperceptible to us surface dwellers, these pieces of a rocky jigsaw puzzle are constantly crashing together, diving beneath one ...