He built a Sonic Pavilion in Brazil that records the sound of plate tectonics one year, and then created a video and performance piece on a barge in Greece the next.

WSJ: Where I Work: Artist Doug Aitken

By the 1960s, scientists had developed a theory called plate tectonics explaining the locations of volcanoes and other large-scale geologic features.

BBC: The Pacific 'Ring of Fire'

Plate tectonics, the formation of faults and the moving of the continental crust over a molten interior, is a characteristic unique to Earth and it meant that minerals evolved far beyond those on any other planet in the Solar System.

ECONOMIST: Minerals

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

The Earth is just too unusual a place, they insisted, with its stable orbit, nearby moon, watery surface, plate tectonics and unique position in the galaxy.

FORBES: We've Got Company