List of plate tectonics topics
This is a list of articles related to plate tectonics and tectonic plates.
Individual plates
- List of tectonic plates – A list of the relatively moving sections of the lithosphere of the Earth
- African Plate – Tectonic plate underlying Africa west of the East African Rift
- Anatolian Plate – A continental tectonic plate comprising most of the Anatolia (Asia Minor) peninsula
- Antarctic Plate – A tectonic plate containing the continent of Antarctica and extending outward under the surrounding oceans
- Arabian Plate – A tectonic plate consisting mostly of the Arabian Peninsula, extending northward to the Levant
- Burma Plate – A minor tectonic plate in Southeast Asia
- Cocos Plate – A young oceanic tectonic plate beneath the Pacific Ocean off the west coast of Central America
- Eurasian Plate – A tectonic plate which includes most of the continent of Eurasia
- Explorer Plate – An oceanic tectonic plate beneath the Pacific Ocean off the west coast of Vancouver Island, Canada
- Farallon Plate – An ancient oceanic plate that has mostly subducted under the west coast of the North American Plate
- Gorda Plate – One of the northern remnants of the Farallon Plate
- Indian Plate – A major tectonic plate once part of the supercontinent Gondwana
- Juan de Fuca Plate – A small tectonic plate in the western North Pacific
- Halmahera Plate – A small tectonic plate in the Molucca Sea
- Indo-Australian Plate – A major tectonic plate formed by the fusion of the Indian and Australian plates
- Pacific Plate – An oceanic tectonic plate under the Pacific Ocean
- Molucca Sea Plate – A small fully subducted tectonic plate
- Nazca Plate – Oceanic tectonic plate in the eastern Pacific Ocean basin
- North American Plate – Large tectonic plate including most of North America, Greenland and a bit of Siberia
- Philippine Sea Plate – An oceanic tectonic plate to the east of the Philippines
- South American Plate – A major tectonic plate which includes most of South America and a large part of the south Atlantic
- Sunda Plate – A minor tectonic plate including most of Southeast Asia
Paleocontinents
- Gondwana – Neoproterozoic to Carboniferous supercontinent
- Laurasia – Northern supercontinent that formed part of the Pangaea supercontinent
- Pangaea – Supercontinent from the late Paleozoic to early Mesozoic eras
- Panthalassa – Prehistoric superocean that surrounded Pangaea
- Rodinia – Hypothetical neoproterozoic supercontinent from between about a billion to about three quarters of a billion years ago
- Terrane – Fragment of crustal material formed on, or broken off from, one tectonic plate and accreted or "sutured" to crust lying on another plate
Specific areas
- Alpine Fault – A right-lateral strike-slip fault, that runs almost the entire length of New Zealand's South Island.
- Benham Rise, also known as Benham Plateau
- East African Rift – An active continental rift zone in East Africa
- Hawaiian–Emperor seamount chain – A mostly undersea mountain range in the Pacific Ocean that reaches above sea level in Hawaii.
- Geology of the Alps – The formation and structure of the European Alps
- Indian subcontinent – Peninsular region in south-central Asia south of the Himalayas
- Mariana Trench – The deepest part of Earth's oceans, where the Pacific Plate is subducted under the Mariana Plate
- Mid-Atlantic Ridge – A divergent tectonic plate boundary that in the North Atlantic separates the Eurasian and North American plates, and in the South Atlantic separates the African and South American plates
- Mohorovičić discontinuity – Boundary between the Earth's crust and the mantle
- Molucca Sea Collision Zone – A region of complex tectonic activity in Indonesia
- Pacific-Antarctic Ridge – A divergent tectonic plate boundary located on the seafloor of the South Pacific Ocean, separating the Pacific Plate from the Antarctic Plate
- Philippine Mobile Belt – Complex portion of the tectonic boundary between the Eurasian Plate and the Philippine Sea Plate, comprising most of the country of the Philippines
- San Andreas Fault – A continental transform fault through California between the Pacific Plate and the North American Plate
- Tethys Ocean, also known as Tethys Sea – Mesozoic ocean between Gondwana and Laurasia
Earthquakes
- Blind thrust earthquake – Movement along a thrust fault that is not visible at the surface
- Earthquake – Shaking of the surface of the earth caused by a sudden release of energy in the crust
- Intraplate earthquake – Earthquake that occurs within the interior of a tectonic plate
- Interplate earthquake – Earthquake that occurs at the boundary between two tectonic plates
- Megathrust earthquake – Earthquakes that occur at subduction zones at destructive convergent plate boundaries
Other plate tectonics topics
- Asthenosphere – The highly viscous, mechanically weak and ductile region of the Earth's upper mantle
- Back-arc basin – Submarine features associated with island arcs and subduction zones
- Continent – Very large landmass identified by convention
- Continental drift – The movement of the Earth's continents relative to each other
- Convergent boundary – Region of active deformation between colliding lithospheric plates
- Crust – The outermost solid shell of a rocky planet, dwarf planet, or natural satellite
- Divergent boundary – Linear feature that exists between two tectonic plates that are moving away from each other
- Fault (geology) – Fracture or discontinuity in rock across which there has been displacement
- Island arc – Arc-shaped archipelago usually along a subduction zone
- Isostasy – State of gravitational equilibrium between Earth's crust and mantle
- List of tectonic plate interactions – Definitions and examples of the interactions between the relatively mobile sections of the lithosphere
- Mantle – The part of the interior of a planet between the crust and the core
- Mountain – A large landform that rises fairly steeply above the surrounding land over a limited area
- Obduction – The overthrusting of oceanic lithosphere onto continental lithosphere at a convergent plate boundary
- Mid-ocean ridge, also known as Oceanic ridge – An underwater mountain system formed by plate tectonic spreading
- Oceanic trench – Long and narrow depressions of the sea floor
- Orogeny – The formation of mountain ranges
- Paleoclimatology – The study of changes in climate taken on the scale of the entire history of Earth
- Paleomap – Map of continents and mountain ranges in the past based on plate reconstructions
- Passive margin – The transition between oceanic and continental lithosphere that is not an active plate margin
- Ridge push – A proposed driving force for tectonic plate motion as the result of the lithosphere sliding down the raised asthenosphere below mid-ocean ridges
- Rift – A linear zone where the Earth's crust is being pulled apart, and is an example of extensional tectonics
- Seafloor spreading – A process at mid-ocean ridges, where new oceanic crust is formed through volcanic activity and then gradually moves away from the ridge
- Seamount – A mountain rising from the ocean seafloor that does not reach to the water's surface
- Subduction – A geological process at convergent tectonic plate boundaries where one plate moves under the other
- Supercontinent – Landmass comprising more than one continental core, or craton
- Tectonic uplift – The portion of the total geologic uplift of the mean earth surface that is not attributable to an isostatic response to unloading
- Transform fault, also known as Transform boundary – A plate boundary where the motion is predominantly horizontal
- Volcano – A rupture in the crust of a planetary-mass object that allows hot lava, volcanic ash, and gases to escape from a magma chamber below the surface
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