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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)
This paradoxically results in divergence which was only incorporated in the theory of plate tectonics in 1970, but still results in net destruction when summed over major plate boundaries. [2] Divergent boundaries are areas where plates move away from each other, forming either mid-ocean ridges or rift valleys. These are also known as ...
Plate tectonics (from Latin tectonicus, from Ancient Greek τεκτονικός (tektonikós) 'pertaining to building') is the scientific theory that Earth's lithosphere comprises a number of large tectonic plates, which have been slowly moving since 3–4 billion years ago.
The richly textured landscape of the United States is a product of the dueling forces of plate tectonics, weathering and erosion. Over the 4.5 billion-year history of the Earth, tectonic upheavals and colliding plates have raised great mountain ranges while the forces of erosion and weathering worked to tear them down.
The Rodrigues triple junction viewed from south. Note the "wake" of the eastward propagating triple junction. The Rodrigues triple junction (RTJ), also known as the central Indian [Ocean] triple junction (CITJ) is a geologic triple junction in the southern Indian Ocean where three tectonic plates meet: the African plate, the Indo-Australian plate, and the Antarctic plate.
The northwards collision of the Australian plate with the Sunda plate (Sundaland plate, previously classified as part of Eurasian plate) has a maximum convergence velocity of 7.3 cm (2.9 in) per year ± 0.8 cm (0.31 in) per year at the Java Trench decreasing to 6.0 cm (2.4 in) ± 0.04 cm (0.016 in) per year at the southern Sumatra Trench.
Scientists have known that the collision of the two tectonic plates, which began roughly 60 million years ago, caused the edge of the Eurasian plate to buckle, bulging and twisting into what we ...
The adjoining plates are the Nazca plate, the South American plate, the African plate, the Somali plate, the Indo-Australian plate, the Pacific plate, and, across a transform boundary, the Scotia and South Sandwich plates. The Antarctic plate has an area of about 60,900,000 km 2 (23,500,000 sq mi). [3] It is Earth's fifth-largest tectonic plate.