The dance of the continents has been reshaping Earth for billions of years, creating the landscapes we walk on today.

Forbes contributors publish independent expert analyses and insights. David Bressan is a geologist who covers curiosities about Earth. Based on a series of models considering how the continents were ...

Researchers describe zircons from the Andes mountains of Patagonia. Although the zircons formed when tectonic plates were colliding, they have a chemical signature associated with when the plates were ...

In deep Earth, rocks take up and release water all the time, and the effects can be wide reaching. Dehydration can cause rocks to crack and trigger earthquakes, and over geologic timescales, this ...

In the heart of Asia, deep underground, two huge tectonic plates are crashing into each other — a violent but slow-motion bout of geological bumper cars that over time has sculpted the soaring ...

Massive tectonic collisions in the tropics may have caused Earth's last three great ice ages. Before each of these ice ages, new research finds, collisions between continents and island arcs built ...

Far from a process of smooth, inevitable ascendance, the formation of the iconic Andes Mountains was downright explosive. As the peaks rose skyward along the western coast of South America dozens of ...

Using archival data from the mission, launched in 1989, researchers have uncovered new evidence that tectonic activity may be deforming the planet’s surface. Vast, quasi-circular features on Venus’ ...