Our planet's lithosphere is broken into several tectonic plates. Their configuration is ever-shifting, as supercontinents are assembled and broken up, and oceans form, grow, and then start to close in ...

Scientists recently published new ideas about why Earth’s toughest, oldest continents persist. These continents, known as cratons, have been on earth for more than two billion years. Andrew Zuza, an ...

Over millions of years, the Earth’s upper layers have performed a dance that has created mountains, volcanoes, continents, ridges and ocean trenches. Tectonic plates play a key role in this process.

Map highlighting the Atlantic subduction zones, the fully developed Lesser Antilles and Scotia arcs on the western side and the incipient Gibraltar arc on the eastern side. From Duarte et al., 2018.