The movement of the plates creates three types of tectonic boundaries: convergent, where plates move into one another; ...

A new study suggests that plate tectonics -- the dynamic processes that formed Earth's mountains, volcanoes and continents -- began about 3 billion years ago. By analyzing trace element ratios ...

Those data helped the team estimate that continental rocks — and therefore plate tectonics — were already going strong by 3.5 billion years ago. Questions or comments on this article?

The intense pressures inside super-Earths make plate tectonics less likely, new research suggests.

A new study suggests that plate tectonics -- a scientific theory that divides the earth into large chunks of crust that move slowly over hot viscous mantle rock -- could have been active from the ...

A new study suggests that rapid cooling within the Earth's mantle through plate tectonics played a major role in the development of the first life forms, which in turn led to the oxygenation of ...

The towering mountains aren't simply standing on a firm, rigid, hard crust. There's also a fragment of hot molten mantle that ...

Continental crust may have differentiated from oceanic crust more than 3.5 billion years ago, pushing the origin of plate tectonics back half a billion years.

How plate tectonics could make rocky planets hospitable to life Planets closely orbiting red dwarf stars may have dynamic tectonic plates, making them more life-friendly than previously thought.

New research hints that plate tectonics began earlier than 4 billion years ago — not long after Earth had formed.

The Earth’s tectonic processes are widely considered essential for life, but may have only started after the first organisms appeared.

Science Space Solar System Earth-like plate tectonics may have shaped Venus billions of years ago A new study bolsters the theory that microbial life could have existed on our sister planet. Laura ...