Strange features of a collision point between pieces of Earth's crust are evidence that the structure may be nearing its end, ...

Subduction zones, where one tectonic plate dives underneath another, drive the world’s most devastating earthquakes and tsunamis. How do these danger zones come to be? A study in Geology presents ...

For decades, the end-stage life of a subduction zone existed only in theory. Now, for the first time in geologic history, scientists are bearing witness to the Juan de Fuca Plate tearing apart and ...

Forbes contributors publish independent expert analyses and insights. David Bressan is a geologist who covers curiosities about Earth. A handful of ancient zircon crystals found in South Africa hold ...

The dance of the continents has been reshaping Earth for billions of years, creating the landscapes we walk on today.

Far from boring, this period saw the reorganization of deep Earth in manners that prepared the way for life to grow complex.

A unique rock formation in China holds clues that tectonic plates subducted, or went underneath other plates, during the Archean eon (4 billion to 2.5 billion years ago), just as they do nowadays, a ...

For the first time, scientists have seen a subduction zone actively breaking apart beneath the Pacific Northwest. Seismic ...

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 ...

The tiny Juan de Fuca plate is largely responsible for the volcanoes that dot the Pacific Northwest of the United States. The plates make up Earth's outer shell, called the lithosphere. (This includes ...

SEATTLE — The threat of an earthquake at any given moment in Washington, Oregon, and Idaho is real. Right below our feet is the meeting place of multiple tectonic plates, slowly moving and pushing ...