Rocks from Australia have given scientists the oldest direct proof that Earth's surface was moving in separate pieces 3.5 billion years ago.

Earth's crust ranges from 5 to 70 kilometers in thickness and serves as the planet's outermost layer. This thin shell represents less than one percent of Earth's total mass, yet it's the only layer we ...

The seemingly stable regions of the Earth's continental plates—the so-called stable cratons—have suffered repetitive deformation below their crust since their formation in the remote past, according ...

There are 35 large Archean cratons around the world that form the geologic core of tectonic plates. Because they’re located at the interior of plates, these landmasses often remain unaltered over the ...

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The Sierra Nevada range in California is seen from the north. Crustal rocks deep underneath are in the process of foundering, or sinking into the mantle. Credit: Dicklyon/Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4 ...

Data from scientific ocean drilling have offered important insights through which we have begun to better understand solid Earth cycles, including the interaction and evolution of Earth’s crust, ...

About sixty million years ago, the Icelandic mantle plume—a fountain of hot rock that rises from Earth’s core-mantle boundary—unleashed volcanic activity across a vast area of the North Atlantic, ...