Scientists have dug the deepest hole ever in rock from Earth's mantle, drilling more than 4,160 feet in the North Atlantic ocean. The team of researchers used an ocean drilling vessel to dig into ...

Earth's crust may "drip" into its middle layer ... They used a thick, gooey polymer to represent the middle mantle, and a mix of clay and the polymer for the more rigid upper mantle, topping ...

The North American continent is "dripping" rock into the lower layers of the Earth, new research says, and in the process ...

In the middle of the Pacific Ocean, thousands of miles from any continent, Easter Island rises out of the sea. Its surface ...

When Maureen Long talks to the public about her work, she likes to ask her audience to close their eyes and think of a ...

The mantle transition zone (MTZ), which occurs 410–670 kilometers below Earth's surface, may store several oceans' worth of water. This water, which is carried to such depths by subducting ...

The Earth has a layered structure made up of the core, the mantle and the crust. Different elements are present in different parts of the Earth’s structure. The crust is made from enormous ...

The plates make up Earth's outer shell, called the lithosphere. (This includes the crust and uppermost part of the mantle.) Churning currents in the molten rocks below propel them along like a ...

Even the oldest and most stable of lithospheric structures can’t withstand geologic machinations deep within the Earth.

An ancient slab of Earth's crust buried deep beneath the Midwest is sucking huge swatches of present-day's North American crust down into the mantle, researchers say. The slab's pull has created ...