These ancient buried "super-continents"—known to scientists as large low-seismic-velocity provinces (LLSVPs)—were found lurking below Africa and the Pacific Ocean, entombed some 1,200 miles below the ...

Earth's interior is made up of a series of layers that sit below the surface crust. In order of depth, these layers include the solid, but flowing mantle, the liquid outer core and the solid iron ...

Deep below the Earth's surface, subduction causes partial melting of both the ocean crust and mantle as they slide past one another. This melting generates magma that makes its way to the surface ...

A long-lost oceanic plate is diving deep into the mantle, dragging down the crust above, researchers say. However, the plate ...

Extraction of the continental crust has left the Earth's mantle depleted in certain elements. Some rocks from the Arctic Ocean floor suggest that the extent of depletion and heterogeneity in the ...

Credit: Vadim Sadovski/Shutterstock Potential patches of Earth's ancient crust, sometimes called "sunken worlds," may have just been discovered deep within the mantle, thanks to a new way of ...

Currents within the mantle have broken the crust into blocks, called plates, which slowly move around, colliding to build mountains or rifting apart to form new seafloor. Continents are composed ...