For millions of years, Earth’s shifting plates have shaped continents, formed oceans, and built towering mountain ranges. But ...

the youth of the ocean floor, the presence of island arcs, the deep sea trenches, and the origin of the midocean ridges. Hess's puzzling guyots fit into the sea-floor spreading picture ...

New scans of the bottom of the Japan Trench reveal extensive burrow structures and evidence of regular "reset" events that help sea creatures survive in the ocean's deepest reaches.