Plate tectonics is the theory that Earth's outer layer is made up of plates, which have moved throughout Earth's history. The theory explains the how and why behind mountains, volcanoes, and ...

To learn why, where, and how earthquakes happen, you need to familiarize your students with the interior of the Earth and a model called plate tectonics. The engine behind the earthquake machine ...

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 ...

The Earth is made of different layers: the core, mantle and crust. Plate tectonic theory shows that the crust of the Earth is split into plates (pieces of the Earth’s crust). The movement of ...

Some 4.5 billion years ago, a Mars-sized object smashed into the nascent Earth, spinning off our moon. Now a team of scientists proposes this giant impact did even more: The collision left behind ...

This story appears in the November 2015 issue of National Geographic magazine. Hamburg knew the bombs were coming, and so the prisoners of war and forced laborers had just half a year to build the ...