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The North American plate is a tectonic plate containing most of North America, Cuba, the Bahamas, extreme northeastern Asia, and parts of Iceland and the Azores.With an area of 76 million km 2 (29 million sq mi), it is the Earth's second largest tectonic plate, behind the Pacific plate (which borders the plate to the west).
North American plate – Large tectonic plate including most of North America, Greenland and part of Siberia – 75,900,000 km 2 (29,300,000 sq mi) Pacific plate – Oceanic tectonic plate under the Pacific Ocean – 103,300,000 km 2 (39,900,000 sq mi)
The regions that are not geographically North American but reside on the North American Plate include parts of Siberia (see the Geology of Russia), [2] and Iceland, and Bermuda. A discussion of North American geology can also include other continental plates including the Cocos Plats and Juan de Fuca Plate being subducted beneath western North ...
The Juan de Fuca and Gorda plates are moving east-northeast, subducting under the North American plate at a much slower rate of 2.5 to 3 cm per year. [6] Because the ridge is divided into three distinct parts, each section has its own spreading rate, caused by the slab-pull and ridge-push of the surrounding tectonic plates.
As the edge of North America moved away from the hot rift zone, it began to cool and subside beneath the new Atlantic Ocean. This once-active divergent plate boundary became the passive, trailing edge of westward moving North America. In plate tectonic terms, the Atlantic Plain is known as a classic example of a passive continental margin. [20]
The oceanic Nazca plate subducts beneath the continental South American plate at the Peru–Chile Trench. Just north of the Nazca plate, the oceanic Cocos plate subducts under the Caribbean plate and forms the Middle America Trench. Oceanic crust of the South American plate subducts under the Caribbean plate in the Lesser Antilles subduction zone.
One of the smallest of Earth's tectonic plates, the Juan de Fuca plate is a remnant part of the once-vast Farallon plate, which is now largely subducted underneath the North American plate. In plate tectonic reconstructions, the Juan de Fuca plate is referred to as the Vancouver plate between the break-up of the Farallon plate c. 55–52 Ma and ...
This rift marks the actual boundary between adjacent tectonic plates, where magma from the mantle reaches the seafloor, erupting as lava and producing new crustal material for the plates. Before 2002 Explorer Ridge was the least explored of the northeast Pacific spreading centers, even though it was known to have robust hydrothermal activity ...