Forbes contributors publish independent expert analyses and insights. I cover aerospace, astronomy & hosted The Cosmic Controversy Podcast. An earth-like planet’s ability to globally recycle its ...

An international team has made a significant breakthrough in understanding the tectonic evolution of terrestrial planets.

Plate tectonics might have gotten a fitful start on the early Earth. Today, the process of Earth’s crustal movement called plate tectonics dictates nearly everything about the planet’s appearance, ...

Earth’s crust looks solid from the surface, but it is broken into a shifting mosaic of slabs that slowly rearrange oceans and ...

New research reveals the Indian tectonic plate beneath the Himalayas is not a solid slab but is warping and tearing. This internal breaking and delamination, particularly in the eastern Himalayas, ...

Plate tectonics, the geologic process responsible for creating the Earth's continents, mountain ranges, and ocean basins, may be an on-again, off-again affair. Scientists have assumed that the ...

Plate tectonics, the idea that the surface of the Earth is made up of plates that move apart and come back together, has been used to explain the locations of volcanoes and earthquakes since the 1960s ...

A study reveals that Earth alternated between chaotic and calm climates during the Paleozoic era, driven by tectonics and ...

Plate tectonics churns the icy exterior of Jupiter’s moon Europa, researchers report September 7 in Nature Geoscience. The finding marks the first evidence of plate tectonics elsewhere in the universe ...

The biggest jigsaw puzzle in the solar system has a split personality: The number and sizes of Earth's tectonic plates can flip, according to a new study. Today, the pieces of Earth's broken shell are ...

Map of Earth's principal tectonic plates. Earth's lithosphere. Major and minor plates. arrows indicate direction of movement at plate boundaries. Vector illustration. Billions of years ago, Earth's ...

Plate tectonics is a theory of geology developed to explain the phenomenon of continental drift and is currently the theory accepted by the vast majority of scientists working in this area. In the ...