Researchers have discovered that the underside of the North American continent is dripping away in blobs of rock—and that the ...

A disaster of unimaginable scale looms over Japan as its government is warning that the next ‘megaquake’ could kill as many ...

For millions of years, Earth’s shifting plates have shaped continents, formed oceans, and built towering mountain ranges. But ...

A recent Japanese government report warns of a potential megaquake in the Nankai Trough, which could result in devastating ...

Sedimentary rocks originally deposited on the oceanic plate are scraped off and accreted to the western edge of the continent; the initiation of this process is indicated by the deformation front in ...

In a sobering revelation, Japan has updated its estimates regarding the potential fatalities from a catastrophic earthquake along the Nankai Trough, predicting that up to 298,000 individuals could ...

Scientists have long been puzzled by volcanoes that erupt far from the edges of tectonic plates—known as intraplate volcanoes ...

"Our findings indicate that in the past, recycling and mixing of subducted plates into the mantle was restricted to the upper mantle, where there is strong convection. This is very different from ...

A megaquake in Japan could result in up to 298,000 deaths and $2 trillion in damages, according to new government estimates.

The answer is subduction. In locations around the world, ocean crust subducts, or slides under, other pieces of Earth's crust. The boundary where the two plates meet is called a convergent boundary.