When oceanic plates sink beneath tectonic ones, they can generate magma

Most volcanic activity occurs in submarine volcanoes on the seafloor

At divergent plate boundaries in mid-ocean ridges, volcanic activity produces new ocean crust as the seafloor spreads. These areas are home to underwater mountains with extensive biodiversity due to redirecting ocean currents and concentrating food for marine life.

Deep-sea trenches form when one tectonic plate subducts another underwater

Oceanic plates sink when colliding with less dense continental plates, bending the seafloor into steep depressions that can be almost 11 kilometers deep. Many of Earth’s strongest earthquakes occur at these plate boundaries, often featuring volcanic activity.

Mid-ocean ridges are underwater volcano systems where tectonic plates diverge

New ocean crust is formed at these ridges as magma rises from Earth’s mantle and fills the space between the spreading plates. The speed of divergence influences ridge shape, with slow spreads forming rugged valleys and fast spreading creating smooth, wide slopes.

Ancient sunken plates may influence mantle convection and surface motion

Research suggests sunken tectonic plates can collide, assemble, and break apart to form structures called large low-velocity provinces. LLVPs can significantly enrich rising magma plumes with elements commonly seen on Earth’s surface.

Volcanoes 'die' when their supply of magma runs out, if they are shifted away from their underlying magma reservoir, or if they get clogged by collapsing or their magma cooling back into rock.

Convection flows in Earth’s mantle drive the movement of tectonic plates

These processes transfer heat from Earth’s core to the surface via rising magma plumes, while cooler, denser rock falls into the mantle at rates similar to human fingernail growth. These rates are determined by combining seismic data with computer simulations to model Earth’s interior.

Some tectonic plates move faster than their underlying convection currents

Like a chain slipping off a ledge, as tectonic plates sink, their weight can pull the rest of the trailing plate forward, accelerating their movement. Plates can also break apart and fall, creating a suction effect that drives movement, resembling leaves following a passing car.

Explore case studies of each type of convergent plate boundary

At these boundaries, a collision of two oceanic plates produces a curved chain of volcanic islands, like those seen in the Caribbean. A continental-continental plate collision results in plates buckling upward, forming large mountain ranges.

Slab pull and ridge push contribute to convection-driven oceanic crust movement

Through ridge push, after magma is projected up from the mantle, it cools and sinks, allowing gravity to help push older oceanic crust away. As this crust sinks into the mantle at deep-sea trenches, it pulls on the trailing crust behind it, accelerating ocean crust movement.

Volcanoes 'die' when their supply of magma runs out, if they are shifted away from their underlying magma reservoir, or if they get clogged by collapsing or their magma cooling back into rock.

The cycling of carbon via tectonic activity may have facilitated life on Earth

Plates sinking into Earth’s mantle pull carbon from the surface, helping stabilize the atmosphere and climate by removing greenhouse gases from volcanic eruptions. At the same time, magma is a significant contributor of heavy metals and other crucial minerals for life to the surface.

Hawaii formed from oceanic plate movement over a hot spot in the mantle

Abnormally hot magma rose through the crust and emerged from the seafloor, where it cooled and piled onto layers that became tall enough to form an island. As the plate moved, the existing island moved away and a new one formed over the hot spot, repeating for each Hawaiian island.

Tectonic earthquakes are caused by interactions of tectonic plates at fault zones

At these locations, plates slide past one another, deforming rock through friction as energy builds like a stretched rubber band. Volcanic eruptions, the collapse of subterranean caverns, or underground nuclear explosions can also cause earthquakes.

Underwater volcanoes significantly contributes to marine extinctions during the Triassic period

An analysis of ocean basins in the Tibetan Plateau helped identify three major periods of volcanism—250-248, 233-231, and 210-208 million years ago—which released significant amounts of greenhouse gases, altering ocean chemistry. The low-oxygen conditions may help explain half of Earth's Triassic extinctions.

Heat slowly moves through Earth's mantle like softened wax

Energy trapped during Earth's formation and released via the radioactivity of elements is carried by convection currents towards the surface, while cooler, denser material sinks. The planet's core is almost as hot as the sun's surface.

The composition of magma affects the explosivity of volcanic eruptions

Silicate-rich magma contains extensive molecular chains that trap dissolved gases like water and carbon dioxide. These gases build pressure until they violently escape, creating explosive eruptions. Low-silica magmas produce gentler eruptions categorized as effusive.

Records of Earth's magnetic field on the seafloor validated plate tectonics

Matching glacial, fossil, and rock records, mountain ranges, and continental shapes across oceans was insufficient evidence for continental drift. Precise measurements of magnetic minerals on the ocean floor revealed seafloor spreading, which could only be explained by moving landmasses.

Extraterrestrial volcanoes spew material present during their formation

Unlike Earth's volcanoes that release lava, cryovolcanoes on distant moons erupt cold jets of water, ammonia, and other light gases present during the formation of their host planet. The movement of internal heat produced during formation is thought to drive icy plume movement.

In 2009, accidentally drilling into magma provided time capsules of volcanic glass

While drilling for geothermal energy in Iceland's Krafla Geothermal Field, magma encountered at a depth of 2,100 meters quickly formed glass upon making contact with drilling fluid. By trapping dissolved gases, volatile chemicals, and the physical characteristics of magma before cooling, the glass acts as a time capsule of ancient volcanic activity and magmatic conditions.

Sinkholes form when underground cavities cause the surface above to collapse

These openings are typically carved by acidic water, which often forms in limestone-rich areas. However, leaking pipes, groundwater removal and extreme weather or geological activity increases the frequency of sinkhole appearances.

Wastewater from geothermal power plants helps melt sidewalk snow in Iceland

Located on the Mid-Atlantic ridge, where the North American and Eurasian tectonic plates move apart, the nation saw geothermal power meet more than 90% of its heating demand in 2024. After the hot water produced by these plants is used to heat homes and businesses, it is transferred through small pipes beneath Reykjavík's sidewalks.

Oceans absorb 90% of warming from greenhouse gases

Oceans are providing increasingly more energy to power hurricane intensity. Current projections show rapid intensification is becoming more common, increasing the likelihood of Category 4 and 5 storms.

Dirty lightning is a thunderstorm created from friction between rising and falling flows of ash and smoke during volcanic eruptions.

Europa's deep ocean may hold the conditions needed to support alien life

Beneath its frozen crust, Europa hides a salty ocean heated by tidal forces from Jupiter. This environment may resemble Earth's deep-sea hydrothermal vents and have allowed for the development of life over billions of years.

Concentrated sound waves can collapse microscopic bubbles, creating light

The phenomenon, known as sonoluminescence, can generate extremely short, high-intensity flashes from the sudden focusing of sound energy, which can drive the temperature within the bubbles to values over twice that of the sun's surface.

Explaining how water's movement between different salt concentrations can generate electricity

Water naturally moves from regions of low salinity, such as freshwater, to regions of high salinity, such as ocean water, across a semipermeable membrane. This movement produces pressure that can be harnessed in osmotic power systems to drive turbines and generate electricity, much like in hydroelectric plants.

The deadliest aspect of volcanic eruptions is often not lava, but pyroclastic flows—avalanches of ash, gas, and rock that can move more than half the speed of sound.

Comparing La Niña and El Niño atmosphere-ocean feedback patterns

During La Niña, trade winds reinforce the flow of warm ocean water from the eastern to the western Pacific, allowing colder subsurface water in the eastern Pacific to rise to the surface. These changes reinforce overhead air movements by altering the air temperature near the ocean surface. During El Niño, these trade winds weaken or reverse, preventing upwelling by shifting warm water back to the eastern Pacific and displacing atmospheric circulation patterns.

Explore the animals that populate the depths of the ocean, from fish and coral in the first few hundred feet, all the way down to the bottom of the Mariana Trench.

Watch how deep-sea mining equipment collects and processes polymetallic nodules—metal-rich, potato-shaped rocks—from the ocean floor and creates environmentally damaging plumes of sediments.

The boiling temperature of water decreases with increasing elevation because the molecules need less energy to overcome the lower atmospheric pressure associated with thinner air.

Volcanic activity may have triggered the Black Death by spewing gases that led to crop failures in Europe, thus forcing the import of grain ships with plague-infested fleas.

Massive blooms of microscopic plankton called dinoflagellates produce the neon blue light seen in glowing tides.

Waves off the coast of Nazaré, Portugal, can reach over 100 feet and are caused by the area's deep underwater canyon geography

While El Niño moves warm Pacific Ocean waters east along the equator, La Niña moves them west, shifting where rainfall will become more common for months.

How fusion—which releases energy when two lighter atoms combine to form a heavier atom—differs from fission

Coral polyps reproduce via broadcast spawning, where entire reefs simultaneously release reproductive cells for about one hour, once a year.

Explore the archaeological treasures of Pompeii, the city buried under volcanic ash when Mount Vesuvius erupted in 79 CE.

Some renewable energy sources may weaken the resiliency of electric grids by removing outage buffers provided by coal- and natural gas-fired plants, which provide the system with more time to find a new power source if a plant goes down.

Scientists can determine Earth's past climate conditions by analyzing air trapped in microscopic bubbles within ice cores—columns of compressed snow layers that build up over hundreds of thousands of years.

Pure water does not conduct electricity because this flow of energy requires the movement of charged particles, and water is a neutral molecule.

Radioactive elements can introduce software errors because the ionizing radiation they produce can detach electrons from atoms, and computer code relies on the distribution of electrons.

While the sun's gravity keeps the planets in orbit, their gravity also pulls on the sun, causing it and everything else in the solar system to orbit around a mutual balance point called the barycenter—the true center of the solar system.

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