The plates can be thought of like pieces of a cracked shell that rest on the hot, molten rock of Earth’s mantle and fit snugly against one another. The heat from radioactive processes within the planet’s interior causes the plates to move, sometimes toward and sometimes away from each other.
Why do tectonic plates move towards each other?
The main driving force of plate tectonics is gravity . If a plate with oceanic lithosphere meets another plate, the dense oceanic lithosphere dives beneath the other plate and sinks into the mantle. ... The sinking oceanic lithosphere drags the rest of the tectonic plate and this is the main cause of plate motion.
How do plates move towards each other?
Convergent boundaries occur where two plates slide towards each other to form either a subduction zone (if one plate, normally an oceanic plate moves underneath the other) or a continental collision. ... Transform boundaries occur where two lithospheric plates slide past each other along transform faults.
What is it called when two plates move toward each other?
Convergent (Colliding) : This occurs when plates move towards each other and collide. When a continental plate meets an oceanic plate, the thinner, denser, and more flexible oceanic plate sinks beneath the thicker, more rigid continental plate. This is called subduction.
What are the 3 causes of plate movement?
Mantle dynamics, gravity, and Earth’s rotation taken altogether causes the plate movements. However, convectional currents are the general thought for the motion.
What happens when two tectonic plates move away from each other?
A divergent boundary occurs when two tectonic plates move away from each other. Along these boundaries, earthquakes are common and magma (molten rock) rises from the Earth’s mantle to the surface, solidifying to create new oceanic crust. ... Two plates sliding past each other forms a transform plate boundary.
What are the 4 ways plates move?
- Divergent: extensional; the plates move apart. Spreading ridges, basin-range.
- Convergent: compressional; plates move toward each other. Includes: Subduction zones and mountain building.
- Transform: shearing; plates slide past each other. Strike-slip motion.
How fast do tectonic plates move?
They can move at rates of up to four inches (10 centimeters) per year , but most move much slower than that. Different parts of a plate move at different speeds. The plates move in different directions, colliding, moving away from, and sliding past one another. Most plates are made of both oceanic and continental crust.
What is best explained by plate tectonics?
The theory of plate tectonics states that the Earth’s solid outer crust, the lithosphere, is separated into plates that move over the asthenosphere, the molten upper portion of the mantle. Oceanic and continental plates come together, spread apart, and interact at boundaries all over the planet.
What is most possible when the Earth’s plates slide past each other?
When oceanic or continental plates slide past each other in opposite directions, or move in the same direction but at different speeds, a transform fault boundary is formed. No new crust is created or subducted, and no volcanoes form, but earthquakes occur along the fault.
What are 4 types of boundaries?
- Convergent boundaries: where two plates are colliding. Subduction zones occur when one or both of the tectonic plates are composed of oceanic crust. ...
- Divergent boundaries – where two plates are moving apart. ...
- Transform boundaries – where plates slide passed each other.
How do we know the plates are still moving?
Long term relative motion between plates can be inferred by matching geology between continents that can thus be deduced to have once been connected. This approach was used by geologists in the early 20th century. ... That plates are moving today can be demonstrated from earthquakes .
What tectonic plate do we live in?
California is located at the seam of the Pacific Plate , which is the world’s largest plate at 39,768,522 square miles, and the Northern American plate.
What is the fastest moving tectonic plate on Earth?
Because Australia sits on the fastest moving continental tectonic plate in the world, coordinates measured in the past continue changing over time. The continent is moving north by about 7 centimetres each year, colliding with the Pacific Plate, which is moving west about 11 centimetres each year.
What is the most likely cause of plate movement?
The internal heat of the earth is the most likely cause of plate movement; this heat is probably generated by the decay of radioactive minerals. The entire surface of the earth is moving, and each plate is moving in a different direction than any other.
What are 5 landforms caused by plate movement?
Deep ocean trenches, volcanoes, island arcs, submarine mountain ranges, and fault lines are examples of features that can form along plate tectonic boundaries.
