In 1981, scientists discovered one of the thinnest portions of the Earth’s crust — a 1-mile (1.6 kilometers) thick, earthquake-prone spot under the Atlantic Ocean where the American and African ...

The distance from the Earth's surface to its center is almost 4,000 miles—but our planet's structure is not uniform and is actually made up of several different layers, some of which are hotter than ...

The Earth’s oceans have risen and fallen over the millennia. But they have, on average, been relatively stable over billions of years. The balance of the deep water cycle—the exchange of water between ...

Like a mosquito tunneling into the skin to get at the rich feast within, geologists poked a long, narrow drill into Earth's crust last year, pulling out a treasury of geological goodness. The result ...

When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission. Here’s how it works. Earth's hot, gooey center and its cold, hard outer shell are both responsible for the creeping ...

Earth's hot, gooey center and its cold, hard outer shell are both responsible for the creeping (and sometimes catastrophic) movement of tectonic plates. But now new research reveals an intriguing ...

At an underwater mountain in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, scientists have drilled nearly a mile beneath the ocean floor and pulled up an unprecedented scientific bounty — pieces of Earth’s rocky ...

In a groundbreaking discovery, scientists have revealed that a portion of North America's ancient continental crust, known as a craton, is slowly "dripping" into the Earth's deeper layers. This rare ...

An odd phenomenon called lithospheric dripping might occur wherever mountains form. When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission. Here’s how it works. The findings ...