Unlike on Earth, however, Mars has no plate tectonics, so the Martian layers are flat and not disrupted as they would be on Earth.

CNN: Rover Curiosity near Mars landing

The largest earthquakes in the world occur close to plate margins, areas of the Earth's upper layers that are being rammed together or pulled apart.

BBC: Q&A: UK's small-scale earthquakes

Three and a half miles high, with no evidence of folding, faulting, or plate tectonics, it was like nothing on Earth.

NEWYORKER: The Martian Chroniclers

Given all the discoveries that we have made from an up-close investigation of these ocean ridges, we can't help but wonder what we might find at the far end of the same plate tectonic cycle where seafloor is drawn back into the Earth's interior at deep-ocean trenches.

CNN: Probing the ocean's undiscovered depths

She takes her visit to the Galapagos, for example, as the starting point for an explanation of plate tectonics (the itchy movements of the various plates that comprise the earth's ever-shifting surface) that created these islands.

ECONOMIST: Island life

Geological processes, such as plate tectonics, erupting volcanoes, advancing glaciers and river networks, have altered Earth's surface over billions of years.

MSN: Saturn's moon Titan may have seen Earth-like erosion

Such concentrations are usually created by geological events, such as volcanic eruptions and tectonic plate shifts that steer hot metal-bearing fluids into upper, accessible parts of the Earth's crust, erosion, or massive sedimentary movements.

WSJ: Exhausting the Earth's Resources? Not So Fast