The Earth’s crust is constantly changing. It’s currently made of many huge rock slabs called tectonic plates—seven major ones along with many more smaller plates—that fit together like puzzle pieces ...

The puzzle pieces of Earth’s rocky crust are slowly and steadily moving — a process known as plate tectonics. These dynamic movements helped to create the habitats and climate that fostered the ...

The arid hills of Western Australia’s Pilbara region contain the earliest evidence yet of tectonic plates sliding across Earth’s surface. Tiny magnetic crystals locked in the bedrock recorded the ...

The colossal movements of tectonic plates shape our world, influencing the composition of Earth’s atmosphere, the planet’s protective magnetic field and perhaps even the flourishing of life. Now ...

Carbon released from Earth's spreading tectonic plates, not volcanoes, may have triggered major transitions between ancient ice ages and warm climates, new research finds. Published in Communications ...

Our planet has experienced dramatic climate shifts throughout its history, oscillating between freezing “icehouse” periods and warm “greenhouse” states. Scientists have long linked these climate ...

This piece is part of a special project on deep time examining what the Western U.S. was like thousands, millions and even billions of years ago, and how that history is still visible and ...

The tectonic plates are among the most powerful forces on Earth, exerting tremendous influence over every single life that unfolds on this planet. They are both creators and destroyers, capable of ...

For decades, scientists have grappled with a profound question known as the Fermi Paradox: if the galaxy is teeming with the potential for extraterrestrial life, why is the cosmos so quiet? A new ...

Rocks in Australia preserve evidence that plates in Earth’s crust were moving 3.5 billion years ago, a finding that pushes back the beginnings of plate tectonics by hundreds of millions of years.