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Earth's lithosphere is divided into seven or eight major plates and numerous smaller plates that move at rates ranging from nearly zero to about 160 millimetres per year.
Plate tectonics is the scientific theory that Earth's rigid lithosphere is divided into large and small tectonic plates that have moved slowly for billions of years. These plates float on the hotter, weaker asthenosphere and consist of oceanic crust, continental crust, and underlying lithospheric mantle. The theory developed from continental drift and gained broad acceptance after evidence for seafloor spreading emerged in the 1960s. Plate interactions occur at three main types of boundaries: divergent boundaries, where plates separate and new crust forms; convergent boundaries, where plates collide, causing subduction or mountain building; and transform boundaries, where plates slide past one another. These movements produce earthquakes, volcanoes, mountain ranges, mid-ocean ridges, and oceanic trenches. Plate motion is driven mainly by the sinking of cold, dense oceanic lithosphere at subduction zones, with contributions from mantle convection and gravitational sliding from elevated ridges.
Earth's lithosphere is divided into seven or eight major plates and numerous smaller plates that move at rates ranging from nearly zero to about 160 millimetres per year.
Divergent boundaries create new oceanic crust through seafloor spreading, while convergent boundaries destroy crust through subduction or build mountains through continental collision.
Transform boundaries conserve crust as plates slide horizontally past one another and commonly generate strong earthquakes.
Plate tectonic activity explains the global distribution of earthquakes, volcanoes, mountain ranges, mid-ocean ridges, and oceanic trenches.
The strongest widely accepted driver of plate motion is slab pull, caused by the sinking of cold, dense oceanic lithosphere into the mantle; mantle convection and ridge-related gravitational sliding also contribute.
The theory that Earth's lithosphere consists of moving tectonic plates whose interactions shape the planet's surface.
Earth's rigid outer shell, consisting of the crust and the uppermost mantle.
The hotter, weaker, and more ductile layer beneath the lithosphere on which tectonic plates move.
A plate boundary where two plates move apart and new crust forms, commonly through seafloor spreading.
A plate boundary where two plates move toward each other, producing subduction or continental collision.
A plate boundary where two plates slide horizontally past one another without creating or destroying crust.
The process by which one tectonic plate, usually dense oceanic lithosphere, sinks beneath another plate into the mantle.
The formation and outward movement of new oceanic crust at divergent boundaries such as mid-ocean ridges.
A major proposed driving force of plate motion caused by the gravitational sinking of cold, dense oceanic lithosphere at subduction zones.
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