Earth S Floor Tectonic Plates

Oceanic crust also called sima from silicon and magnesium and continental crust sial from silicon and aluminium.

Earth s floor tectonic plates.

Major tectonic plates by size pacific plate 103 300 000 sq km the pacific plate is estimated to be 103 300 000 square kilometers in size. Its outer shell is made up of huge slabs of moving rock called tectonic plates. Their movements change the planet s features depending on how the plates meet. The theory of plate tectonics has done for geology what charles darwin s theory of evolution did for biology.

Earth s surface appears to be still but it is actually constantly on the move. The division of the earth s surface into seven major mobile plates is fundamental to our planet s uniqueness creating a habitable environment and possibly the conditions under which life itself originated. Pertaining to building is a scientific theory describing the large scale motion of seven large plates and the movements of a larger number of smaller plates of earth s lithosphere since tectonic processes began on earth between 3 3 and 3 5 billion years ago. For example two hundred million years ago there was only one super continent named pangaea.

The idea that our planet s continents drift around the globe periodically glomming together and breaking apart is at least 200 years old but most geologists didn t believe it until the 1960s when mounting evidence made it clear that the earth s crust is broken up into fragments and that those fragments called tectonic plates are moving. Tectonic plates are pieces of earth s crust and uppermost mantle together referred to as the lithosphere the plates are around 100 km 62 mi thick and consist of two principal types of material. Found underneath the pacific ocean it is the largest of all tectonic plates. The plates fit together like puzzle pieces to make up earth s surface.

Tectonicus from the ancient greek. Plate tectonics from the late latin. The theory of plate tectonics is 50 years old but there are many puzzles left to answer says dr kate rychert who studies the geology at the bottom of the atlantic ocean. Plate tectonics also explains how continents mountains volcanoes and earthquakes were created as a by product of continental.

This is a list of tectonic plates on earth s surface. Was formulated in the 1960s and 1970s as new information was obtained about the nature of the ocean floor earth s ancient magnetism the distribution of volcanoes and earthquakes the flow of heat from earth s interior and the. There are a total of seven major tectonic plates which cover nearly 95 of the earth s surface.