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Plate tectonics
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The tectonic plates of the world were mapped in the second half of the 20th century.
Diagram of the internal layering of the Earth showing the lithosphere above the asthenosphere
(not to scale)

Plate tectonics (from the Late Latin: tectonicus, from the Ancient

Greek: τεκτονικός, lit. 'pertaining to building')[1] is a scientific
theory describing the large-scale motion of seven large plates and the
movements of a larger number of smaller plates of the Earth's lithosphere,
since tectonic processes began on Earth between 3.3[2] and 3.5 billion years
ago. The model builds on the concept of continental drift, an idea developed
during the first decades of the 20th century. The geoscientific community
accepted plate-tectonic theory after seafloor spreading was validated in the
late 1950s and early 1960s.
The lithosphere, which is the rigid outermost shell of a planet (the crust and
upper mantle), is broken into tectonic plates. The Earth's lithosphere is
composed of seven or eight major plates (depending on how they are
defined) and many minor plates. Where the plates meet, their relative
motion determines the type of boundary: convergent, divergent,
or transform. Earthquakes, volcanic activity, mountain-building, and oceanic
trenchformation occur along these plate boundaries (or faults). The relative
movement of the plates typically ranges from zero to 100 mm annually.[3]
Tectonic plates are composed of oceanic lithosphere and thicker continental
lithosphere, each topped by its own kind of crust. Along convergent
boundaries, subduction, or one plate moving under another, carries the lower
one down into the mantle; the material lost is roughly balanced by the
formation of new (oceanic) crust along divergent margins by seafloor
spreading. In this way, the total surface of the lithosphere remains the same.
This prediction of plate tectonics is also referred to as the conveyor belt
principle. Earlier theories, since disproven, proposed gradual shrinking
(contraction) or gradual expansion of the globe.[4]
Tectonic plates are able to move because the Earth's lithosphere has
greater mechanical strength than the underlying asthenosphere. Lateral
density variations in the mantle result in convection; that is, the slow
creeping motion of Earth's solid mantle. Plate movement is thought to be
 driven by a combination of the motion of the seafloor away from spreading
ridges due to variations in topography (the ridge is a topographic high)
and density changes in the crust (density increases as newly formed crust
cools and moves away from the ridge). At subduction zones the relatively
cold, dense oceanic crust is "pulled" or sinks down into the mantle over the
downward convecting limb of a mantle cell.[5] Another explanation lies in the
different forces generated by tidal forces of the Sunand Moon. The relative
importance of each of these factors and their relationship to each other is
unclear, and still the subject of much debate.
Key principles
Types of plate boundaries
Driving forces of plate motion
Development of the theory
Implications for biogeography
Plate reconstruction
Current plates
Other celestial bodies (planets, moons)
See also
References
External links
Last edited 4 days ago by Spinningspark

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