The Africa with the eastern Atlantic floor plate.The South American plate (with western Atlantic floor separated from the North American plate along the Caribbean islands).The North American plate (with western Atlantic floor separated from the South American plate along the Caribbean islands).The Antarctic (and the surrounding oceanic) plate.Young Fold Mountain ridges, oceanic trenches, and/or transform faults surround the major plates.The Earth’s lithosphere is divided into seven major and some minor plates. The Pacific plate is largely an oceanic plate whereas the Eurasian plate is a continental plate.A tectonic plate may be a continental plate or an oceanic plate, depending on which of the two occupies the larger portion of the plate.The concept of Tectonic Plates was first introduced in 1967.The lithosphere includes the crust and top mantle with its thickness range varying between 5-100 km in oceanic parts and about 200 km in the continental areas.
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Geographical Features and their Location.The San Andreas Fault is one of the best examples of lateral plate motion. When two tectonic plates slide past each other, the place where they meet is a transform or lateral fault. This can lead to the formation of huge, high mountain ranges such as the Himalayas. Since neither plate is stronger than the other, they crumple and are pushed up. About 80% of earthquakes occur where plates are pushed together, called convergent boundaries.Īnother form of convergent boundary is a collision where two continental plates meet head-on. Sometimes the molten rock rises to the surface, through the continent, forming a line of volcanoes. The rocks pulled down under the continent begin to melt. Subduction causes deep ocean trenches to form, such as the one along the west coast of South America. When a continental plate meets an oceanic plate, the thinner, denser, and more flexible oceanic plate sinks beneath the thicker, more rigid continental plate. The Great Rift Valley in Africa, the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden all formed as a result of divergent plate motion.Ĭonvergent (Colliding): This occurs when plates move towards each other and collide. The earthquakes that occur along these zones, called spreading centers, are relatively small. Molten rock from the mantle erupts along the opening, forming new crust. The three main types of plate movements include:ĭivergent (Spreading):This is where two plates move away from each other.
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The movements of the plates help shape the geological features of our planet.
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Other plates include continents, and some plates include both continents and ocean. Some of the plates have ocean water above them. When the plates finally give and slip due to the increased pressure, energy is released as seismic waves, causing the ground to shake. Most seismic activity occurs at three types of plate boundaries-divergent, convergent, and transform.Īs the plates move past each other, they sometimes get caught and pressure builds up. Movement in narrow zones along plate boundaries causes most earthquakes.