Plate Tectonics


Plate tectonics, they make up the Earth's outer shell which is called the lithosphere. The lithosphere includes the crust, and the uppermost part of the mantle.

There are a lot of major plates and dozens of smaller, or minor plates. Six of the major plates are named after the continents embedded within them, there is

North America, African, and then there are the Antartic plates. There is the Juan de Fuca plate it is very small, it is greatly responsible for the volcanoes that dot

the Pacific North west of the United States. The movement that the plates make form three types of tectonic boundaries. One is the convergent boundary, where

plates move into one another. The second one is the divergent boundary, where plates move apart. Then the third one is the transform boundary, where plates

move sideways in relation to each other. There are many kinds of plate tectonics but these are the three main plate tectonics. And there is a fourth one called zone

boundary. This one is where broad belts in which boundaries are not well defined and the effects of plate interaction are unclear.

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The website for this picture is www.nvcc.edu.com. This is a picture of a convergent boundary. Two plates of cooled maga colided together.San_Andreas[1].gif
The website for this picture is www.blogspot.com. This picture is a divergent boundary. It's a picture of an ocean center spreading or sea floor spreading.image006[1].jpg
The website for this picture is www.cochise.com. This is a picture of a transform boundary. As you can see the plates are moving sideways in relation to each other.