The Himalayas have been rising for about 50 million years, since the Indian and Eurasian tectonic plates began colliding.

The Earth's internal forces have continuously pushed and reshaped how the planet's land masses are arranged. From one supercontinent hundreds of millions of years ago, to present day, the Earth has looked dramatically different throughout the...

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.

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.

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.

Tectonic plates are pieces of Earth’s lithosphere, which consists of the crust and the solid, upper layer of the mantle. Segments of major plates can break and form minor or microplates, whose total number varies based on ongoing geological activity.

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.

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.

Geological records show that the Nuna and the Transgondwanan Supermountains existed around the same time as two major jumps in species complexity on the planet: the rise of large organisms and the Cambrian explosion, respectively. Researchers believe that the erosion of these mountains deposited major nutrients into the oceans and boosted oxygen levels, both of which supported more complex species.

At converging oceanic-continental plate boundaries, the subduction of the oceanic plate introduces seawater that reduces the melting temperature of the overlying mantle. This causes it to melt into less dense magma, which can rise to fuel more volcanic activity.

The transform boundary divides the opposing movements of the Pacific and North American tectonic plates, which create shear zones that distort and fracture rock. These movements produce shallow earthquakes as rocks are gradually displaced hundreds of miles.

Earth is in an interglacial period of the Quaternary glaciation, resulting in receding glaciers and mild temperatures. However, today's warming trend is occurring much faster than previous warming periods in the climate record.

At these boundaries, tectonic plates move apart, stretching and thinning Earth’s crust as long valleys are formed from smaller, interconnected valleys and troughs. Ongoing rifting and erosion can further sink the valley, becoming a rift lake if volcanic activity becomes inactive.

During these periods, Earth grows cold and is covered in massive continental ice sheets. Scientists have outlined at least five major ice ages, which result from the alignment of complex factors, like the flow of ocean currents and the movement and location of tectonic plates.

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.

Before Pangaea, the Earth’s continental plates had drifted together and broken apart multiple times, with each event altering atmospheric CO2 concentrations and triggering climate change. The continents are estimated to come together again in 50 million to 250 million years.

Researchers at the University of Sydney developed the model, incorporating changing plate boundaries rather than just moving continents, to better understand the changes to biological and climatic systems throughout Earth’s history.

German meteorologist Alfred Wegener proposed that the continents were all one giant landmass in the past, which he named Pangaea. Despite geological and climate evidence suggesting continental movement, his theory was dismissed until the 1960s.

Linked to some mass extinction events on Earth, LIPs contain significant amounts of igneous rock formed by the release of lava and gases over millions of years. India's Deccan Traps and the Siberian Traps are prominent examples of LIPs, whose climate-related impacts can serve as models for analyzing modern climate change.

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.

While the vast majority of contemporary Sikhs live in Punjab, India, millions have moved elsewhere in the world, especially in anglophone countries. This chart shows which countries host the largest communities of the Sikh diaspora in the world.

At just over 29,000 feet, Mount Everest is the highest summit on Earth and the premiere destination for serious climbers. The imposing peak has also claimed at least 322 lives over the past century, or between four and five victims per year. This...

Alfred Wegener proposed continental drift—the movement of large landmasses—in 1912 to explain why similar rock layers, plant and animal fossils, and glacial deposits were found on continents that were then unconnected. In the early 1960s, this was combined with evidence of seafloor spreading, mantle convection in Earth's interior, and earthquake and volcanic data outlining plate boundaries to produce the accepted theory.

Mesosaurus fossils are found in South America and Africa, but these freshwater creatures could not have travelled across the ocean between continents. Rock layers in the Appalachian Mountains match those seen in Europe, indicating that the mountain belts were once connected.

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.

This interactive map traces the British Empire from 1450 to today—showing its explosive 19th-century expansion to one-quarter of the world's land and its steady contraction after World War II.

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.

Eruptions a little over 2 million, 1.3 million, and 630,000 years ago indicate that the eruption is not imminent, though the sample size is small. Recent analysis reveals magma pockets are not interconnected, reducing eruption risk.

A 2024 PNAS study found that from 2000 to 2020, the length of a day increased at a rate of 1.33 milliseconds per century, an unprecedented amount in the 3.6 million years of day-length changes reconstructed from an analysis of benthic foraminifera fossils. Researchers suggest the slowing comes from changing ice sheets redistributing planetary mass.

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.

Every major religion has a story that started in a specific place before growing to reach millions. This quick video depicts an illustrated map over the last 5,000 years, showing how Hinduism, Buddhism, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam grew from their humble beginnings.

In satellite images, Scotland's highlands present an unusually straight line in the landscape to viewers. This line occurs along a fault where two plates move against each other horizontally. Amid recent ice ages, receding glaciers deepened this fault.

Coming from the Greek words for “all” (pan) and “Earth” (gaia), the supercontinent existed from about 320 million to 195 million years ago. The tectonic activity that split Pangaea into today’s continents may one day bring the continents back together, forming Pangaea Proxima.

A huge rock gate sits atop a mountain in China's northwestern province of Hunan, where visitors climb 999 stairs to crest the natural wonder. For years, tourists used a cable car to reach the top, but a thrilling, curvy road was built in recent decades to allow for better access—and has become an attraction in itself.

From the crust to the core, each of Earth's layers—some solid, some liquid—plays a role in generating its magnetic field, moving tectonic plates, and cycling matter. These details are determined through modeling since humans have only drilled 12 kilometers underground.