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The Earth's axial tilt is currently around 23.4°, and therefore so are the latitudes of the tropical circles, marking the boundary of the tropics: specifically, ±23°26′09.7″ (or 23.43603°). The northern one is called the Tropic of Cancer, and the southern is the Tropic of Capricorn.
The French Crozet Islands, Île Amsterdam, Île Saint-Paul, and the Norwegian Bouvet Island are also located on the Antarctic continental plate, and are not often associated with other continents. The United Nations categorize Bouvet Island as part of South America, [ 4 ] while the World Factbook categorizes it as part of Antarctica.
Map showing Earth's principal tectonic plates and their boundaries in detail. These plates comprise the bulk of the continents and the Pacific Ocean.For purposes of this list, a major plate is any plate with an area greater than 20 million km 2 (7.7 million sq mi)
Continental lithosphere is typically about 200 km (120 mi) thick, though this varies considerably between basins, mountain ranges, and stable cratonic interiors of continents. The location where two plates meet is called a plate boundary.
Subduction zones occur where an oceanic plate meets a continental plate and is pushed underneath it. Subduction zones are marked by oceanic trenches. The descending end of the oceanic plate melts and creates pressure in the mantle, causing volcanoes to form. Back-arc basins can form from extension in the overriding plate, in response to the ...
The Torrid Zone is also known as the tropics. This zone is bounded on the north by the Tropic of Cancer and on the south by the Tropic of Capricorn; these latitudes mark the northern and southern extremes in which the Sun passes [a] directly overhead. This happens once annually on these cusps, but in the tropics proper, the Sun passes overhead ...
Continental-continental divergent/constructive boundary Oceanic divergent boundary: mid-ocean ridge (cross-section/cut-away view). In plate tectonics, a divergent boundary or divergent plate boundary (also known as a constructive boundary or an extensional boundary) is a linear feature that exists between two tectonic plates that are moving away from each other.
Plate tectonics came to be accepted by geoscientists after seafloor spreading was validated in the mid-to-late 1960s. The processes that result in plates and shape Earth's crust are called tectonics. Tectonic plates also occur in other planets and moons.