On a time scale of tens to hundreds of millions of years, the geomagnetic field may be influenced by currents in the mantle. The frequent polarity reversals of Earth's magnetic field can also be ...

What causes lava to gush from volcanoes in plumes of liquid fire or the ground to shake like the world is ending? Plate tectonics. What causes plate tectonics? Not so fast. Until now, the answer was ...

The interiors of rocky planets and moons tend to be pretty hot compared with their surfaces. This heat, which can be caused by a number of sources — such as tidal stretching and compression, the ...

Seismic waves from earthquakes have always offered a window into Earth’s hidden interior. For decades, researchers believed they had a firm grasp on how these waves revealed the rocky mantle’s secrets ...

ROANOKE, Va. (WDBJ) - Our favorite scientists from the Science Museum of Western Virginia dropped by 7@four to talk about convection currents. Danielle Murray and Brooke Haas joined us. Watch the ...

MINNEAPOLIS / ST. PAUL--There's a small problem with Earth's magnetic field: It should not have existed, as Earth's rock record indicates it has, for the past 3.5 billion years. Motions in the Earth's ...

The current Martian mantle contains a multitude of heterogeneous fragments of kilometer-scale sizes. These heterogeneities are believed to be the result of differentiation processes dating back ...

Forbes contributors publish independent expert analyses and insights. David Bressan is a geologist who covers curiosities about Earth. Combining gravity data, chemistry and how seismic waves are ...

Do tectonic plates move because of motion in the Earth's mantle, or is the mantle driven by the plates' movement? Or could it be that this question is ill-posed? This is the point of view adopted by ...

There’s a small problem with Earth’s magnetic field: It should not have existed, as Earth’s rock record indicates it has, for the past 3.5 billion years. Motions in the Earth’s molten iron core ...