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English: How Earth's tectonic plates and lands may have been positioned and moved in the past: an animated video of a full-plate tectonic model extended one billion years into the past. It is a result of the 2020 study "Extending full-plate tectonic models into deep time".
Plate tectonics (from Latin tectonicus, from Ancient Greek τεκτονικός (tektonikós) 'pertaining to building') [1] is the scientific theory that the Earth's lithosphere comprises a number of large tectonic plates, which have been slowly moving since 3–4 billion years ago.
The theory of continental drift has since been validated and incorporated into the science of plate tectonics, which studies the movement of the continents as they ride on plates of the Earth's lithosphere. [2] The speculation that continents might have "drifted" was first put forward by Abraham Ortelius in 1596.
These plates, called tectonic plates, can push against each other. Earthquakes are most common along fault lines, which are fractures that allow the plates to move.
Convergent boundaries are areas where plates move toward each other and collide. These are also known as compressional or destructive boundaries. Obduction zones occurs when the continental plate is pushed under the oceanic plate, but this is unusual as the relative densities of the tectonic plates favours subduction of the oceanic plate. This ...
The Somali plate is a minor tectonic plate which straddles the Equator in the Eastern Hemisphere.It is currently in the process of separating from the African plate along the East African Rift Valley.
The Indian plate (or India plate) is a minor tectonic plate straddling the equator in the Eastern Hemisphere.Originally a part of the ancient continent of Gondwana, the Indian plate broke away from the other fragments of Gondwana and began moving north, carrying Insular India with it. [2]
This is a list of tectonic plates on Earth's surface. Tectonic plates are pieces of Earth's crust and uppermost mantle , together referred to as the lithosphere . The plates are around 100 km (62 mi) thick and consist of two principal types of material: oceanic crust (also called sima from silicon and magnesium ) and continental crust ( sial ...