At some point between 300 million and 1 billion years ago, a large cosmic object smashed into the planet Venus, leaving a crater more than 170 miles in diameter. A team of Brown University researchers ...

The Earth's outer layer is broken into moving, interacting plates whose motion at the surface generates most earthquakes, creates volcanoes and builds mountains. In this image, the orange layer ...

There are 35 large Archean cratons around the world that form the geologic core of tectonic plates. Because they’re located at the interior of plates, these landmasses often remain unaltered over the ...

Poor old Venera 9, the Soviet Union's Venus lander, separated from its orbiter and made a hot, violent descent through the dense Venusian atmosphere on October 22, 1975, landing hard on a circular ...

The oceanic lithosphere forms at the summit of ocean ridges during seafloor spreading. Still, the formation of ocean basins is complex, influenced by smaller-scale convection, stagnated pieces of the ...

A study of a giant impact crater on Venus suggests that its lithosphere was too thick to have had Earth-like plate tectonics, at least for much of the past billion years. At some point between 300 ...

PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] -- At some point between 300 million and 1 billion years ago, a large cosmic object smashed into the planet Venus, leaving a crater more than 170 miles in diameter.