The tiny Juan de Fuca plate is largely responsible for the volcanoes that dot the Pacific Northwest of the United States. The plates make up Earth's outer shell, called the lithosphere. (This includes ...

Along submarine mountain ranges, the mid-ocean ridges, forces from the Earth's interior push tectonic plates apart, forming new ocean floor and thus moving continents about. However, many features of ...

Transform boundaries neither create nor consume crust. Rather, two plates move against each other, building up tension, then releasing the tension in a sudden and often violent jerk. This sudden jerk ...

NORFOLK, Va. — Fault lines are fractures or breaks in the Earth's crust where tectonic plates move past each other, often resulting in earthquakes. These geological features are classified into three ...

The Earth's crust is divided into tectonic plates that move due to forces within the planet. There are three types of plate interactions: divergent boundaries, where plates move apart and seafloor ...

This paper presents a new synthesis of Franciscan Complex tectonics, with the emphasis on the pre-San Andreas fault history of these rocks. Field relations suggest that the Franciscan is characterized ...

Aug. 14 (UPI) --A team of researchers from Rice University in Texas have discovered a new tectonic plate off the coast of Ecuador. There were 56 plates; now, there are 57 -- and researchers think ...