Fifty thousand years ago, North America was home to towering giants. Mammoths roamed the tundra, saber-toothed cats hunted in forests, and giant sloths lumbered across plains. But by the end of ...

Seismic mapping of North America has revealed that an ancient slab of crust buried beneath the Midwest is causing the crust above it to "drip" and suck down rocks from across the continent.

North America Is Dripping From Below, Geoscientists Discover. Published Apr 07, 2025 at 11:32 AM EDT Updated Apr 07, 2025 at 6:37 PM EDT. By .

Just imagining the oldest part of North America slowly “melting” into the mantle is kind of mind-blowing. Makes you think how alive the Earth really is beneath our feet.

Over decades, geologists had built up a history of eastern North America by mapping rocks on Earth’s surface. But they got a much better look, and many fresh insights, starting around 2010.

Researchers have discovered that the underside of the North American continent is dripping away in blobs of rock—and that the remnants of a tectonic plate sinking in Earth's mantle may be the ...