Below the lithosphere is the asthenosphere — a viscous layer kept malleable by heat deep within the Earth. It lubricates the undersides of Earth's tectonic plates, allowing the lithosphere to move.

But there's something really weird about Venus. Though the hellish world has beautifully preserved impact craters on its ...

Cratons are believed to be the longest-lived regions of the Earth, but a new study shows how dynamic processes can cause their eventual disintegration.

Commenting on the geological development, Ken Macdonald, a marine geophysicist and a professor based at the University of ...

The term "lithosphere" comes from the Greek words litho, meaning "stone," and sphaira, meaning "globe" or "ball". The tectonic plates that make up the layer move continuously at a rate of around ...

When plumes of magma well up through Earth's lithosphere, they create volcanoes, islands, seamounts, and other features on ...

The solid outer part of the Earth is known as the lithosphere, which is separated into several tectonic plates. These plates are in constant motion, and their movements can be tracked accurately ...

One of the more stable formations of rock are land masses known as cratons, which contain old “roots” within the lithosphere ...

Earth's crust, or the outermost shell of the planet, has drastically changed throughout geologic history, mostly due to the ...

Cratons are fascinating yet enigmatic geological formations. Known to be relatively stable portions of the Earth's ...