Deep inside Earth, far below the crust and mantle we learn about in school, scientists are mapping strange, continent-sized structures that appear to shape everything from volcanic hotspots to the ...

Olivine, the most common mineral in the upper 400 km (about 250 miles) of Earth’s interior, has long been studied for how it deforms. Scientists have identified two primary directions of dislocation ...

Colossal volcanic eruptions like the kind that may have obliterated the dinosaurs more than 65 million years ago are caused by mantle plumes that rise from shifting underground mountains deep within ...

Seismic imaging has exposed two massive zones hidden deep in Earth’s mantle. These giant blobs, known as large low-velocity provinces, or LLVPs, stretch beneath Africa and the Pacific. They are so ...

A new study shows that giant ore deposits are tightly distributed above where rigid rocks that comprise the nuclei of ancient continents begin to thin, far below the surface (white areas). Redder ...

The illustration shows a cutaway revealing the interior of early Earth with a hot, melted layer above the boundary between the core and mantle. Scientists think some material from the core leaked into ...

Earth’s internal structure continues to reveal details that reshape established scientific explanations about the planet’s ...

Rocks from Australia have given scientists the oldest direct proof that Earth's surface was moving in separate pieces 3.5 ...

Far below your feet, nearly 1,800 miles beneath oceans and continents, Earth carries two massive scars from its violent youth. They are so large they rival continents in size, yet no human will ever ...