Earthquakes off the coast of northern Japan, due to stress between plate boundaries, have happened regularly over the centuries, with sometimes devastating effects. From southern Hokkaidō to around ...

Plate boundaries are where the action is. A large fraction of all earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, and mountain building occurs at plate boundaries. It is also where most of the people on Earth live.

The solid ground that we all live on forms a thin crust around the Earth. It’s no more than 50km thick - and it’s just the upper part of the lithosphere. Below it is the upper mantle. It’s mostly ...

The 8.9-magnitude earthquake that struck coastal Japan on Friday, devastating large swaths of the coast and spawning a powerful tsunami, was caused by the Pacific tectonic plate thrusting underneath ...