ANN ARBOR—As anyone with a smattering of geological knowledge knows, Earth’s crust is made up of plates that creep over the planet’s surface at a rate of several inches per year. But why do they move ...

Proposed evolution of slab pull from the detached lithospheric fragments. At the beginning, both fast-velocity anomalies 1 and 2 contributed to the slab pull, as F1+F2 (hexagon); then F1 was detached, ...

Earth’s mantle, a solid, superheated, churning mass that makes up 84 percent of our planet, is a beautiful, enigmatic place that’s responsible for keeping our world geologically alive. Thanks to this ...