MADISON — A new model of the Earth, 20 years in the making, describes a dynamic three-dimensional puzzle of planetary proportions. Created by University of Wisconsin-Madison geophysicist Chuck DeMets ...

Our planet has an outer layer made up of several plates, which move relative to one another. While we may take this knowledge for granted, this theory of plate tectonics was only formulated in the ...

A groundbreaking study has provided new insights into the forces that cause tectonic movements in Europe’s most seismically active regions. Researchers used advanced satellite data to track land ...

Seismologists Discover Hidden Faults Beneath One of the U.S.'s Biggest Earthquake Hotspots ...

For millions of years, Earth’s moving plates have sculpted continents, carved oceans, and built massive mountain ranges. Yet some of these giant structures vanished deep into the mantle, hidden from ...

A new study introduces a novel way for tectonic plates — massive sheets of rock that jostle for position in the Earth’s crust and upper mantle — to bend and sink. It’s a bit of planetary Pilates that ...

The first direct evidence of how and when tectonic plates move into the deepest reaches of the Earth is published in Nature today. Scientists hope their description of how plates collide with one ...

Learn about the movement of tectonic plates off the coast of northern California, a process that could incite major earthquakes. The hidden processes that drive earthquakes cause a lot of commotion ...

Cause of Earthquakes: Earthquakes happen due to the sudden movement of tectonic plates beneath the Earth’s crust. When stress builds up along plate boundaries or fault lines and the rocks can no ...