The plates make up Earth's outer shell, called the lithosphere. (This includes the ... The movement of the plates creates three types of tectonic boundaries: convergent, where plates move into ...

Though scientists aren't sure how the lithosphere came to be divided into plates, certain aspects of Earth's geology keep the plate tectonic engine chugging along. For a planet to sustain plate ...

Long back, a large collection of material masses coalesced and formed the Earth – it was a single crust or plate with no ...

Plate tectonics is the theory that Earth's outer layer is made up of plates, which have moved throughout Earth's history. The theory explains the how and why behind mountains, volcanoes ...

Research in structural geology and tectonics seeks to define how and why deformation occurs within the earth at scales from mineral fabrics to lithospheric plates, and at time frames ranging from ...

Earthquakes occur when the rock on one side of a fault slips relative to the other. The fault surface can be vertical, ...