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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)
Where the plates meet, their relative motion determines the type of plate boundary (or fault): convergent, divergent, or transform. The relative movement of the plates typically ranges from zero to 10 cm annually. Faults tend to be geologically active, experiencing earthquakes, volcanic activity, mountain-building, and oceanic trench formation.
The key principle of plate tectonics is that the lithosphere exists as separate and distinct tectonic plates, which ride on the fluid-like solid the asthenosphere. Plate motions range from 10 to 40 millimetres per year (0.4 to 1.6 in/year) at the Mid-Atlantic Ridge (about as fast as fingernails grow), to about 160 millimetres per year (6.3 in ...
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 causes the oceanic plate to buckle and usually results in a new mid-ocean ridge forming and turning the obduction into subduction. [citation needed]
Extensional tectonics is associated with the stretching and thinning of the crust or the lithosphere.This type of tectonics is found at divergent plate boundaries, in continental rifts, during and after a period of continental collision caused by the lateral spreading of the thickened crust formed, at releasing bends in strike-slip faults, in back-arc basins, and on the continental end of ...
When a large portion of dense materials was removed under the tectonic plate at this location, the remaining portion of the crust and lithosphere underwent a rapid uplift forming this mountain range. In geodynamics , delamination refers to the loss and sinking (foundering) of the portion of the lowermost lithosphere from the tectonic plate to ...
The African plate, also known as the Nubian plate, is a major tectonic plate that includes most of the continent of Africa (except for its easternmost part) and the adjacent oceanic crust to the west and south.
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).