We often affiliate plate tectonics with earthquakes, as we are all taught in school that the shifting of plates leads to big shakes. But plate tectonics serve a far more important job to the planet ...

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 ...

A new study makes the case that the solar system’s hellish second planet once may have had plate tectonics that could have made it more hospitable to life. By Kenneth Chang Venus today is not like ...

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The solid ground that we all live on forms a thin crust around the Earth. It’s no more than 50km thick - and it’s just the upper part of the lithosphere. Below it is the upper mantle. It’s mostly ...

What would you put on your list of the great scientific breakthroughs of the 20th Century? General relativity? Quantum mechanics? Something to do with genetics, perhaps? One discovery that ought to be ...

New information about the extent of the 1872 Owens Valley earthquake rupture, which occurs in an area with many small and discontinuous faults, may support a hypothesis that these types of quakes ...

Several large earthquakes have struck the Indonesian island of Lombok in the past week, with the largest quake killing at least 105 people and injuring hundreds more. Thousands of buildings are ...

The diagram below shows the structure of the earth. In geography, taking a slice through a structure to see inside is called a cross section. Continental plates are usually quite thick (between 35 to ...