Plate tectonics may be responsible for evolution of life on Earth, say scientists. Billions of years ago, the breakup of our planet’s outer shell made the Earth stable and habitable.

The Earth's plates jostle about in fits and starts that are punctuated with earthquakes and volcanic eruptions. 4 min read There are a few handfuls of major plates and dozens of smaller, or minor ...

Plate tectonics might be key to life on Earth – and why we have not found it anywhere else Stay up to date with notifications from The Independent Notifications can be managed in browser ...

The lithosphere is Earth's outermost layer, composed of the crust and the upper part of the mantle. The layer is divided into chunks called tectonic plates.

Carole King's song I Feel the Earth Move would be the perfect soundtrack for a stunning new video that shows a billion years of plate tectonic movement on Earth condensed into 40 seconds.

To find when plate tectonics began, experts led from Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore studied metamorphic rocks from across the globe that date back as far as 3 billion years ago.