What plates move apart at boundaries?

Plates move apart from each other along divergent boundaries. In the ocean basins these boundaries are the mid-ocean ridges, where new oceanic crust forms. Where continents are pulled apart, large gaps, or rift systems, develop.

What is the 8 minor tectonic plates?

The list of Earth’s minor plates includes the Arabian Plate, Caribbean Plate, Cocos Plate, Nazca Plate, Philippine Plate, Scotia Plate, and more. There are also many smaller plates throughout the world.

How many tectonic plates are earth?

The Earth is made up of roughly a dozen major plates and several minor plates. The Earth is in a constant state of change. Earth’s crust, called the lithosphere, consists of 15 to 20 moving tectonic plates.

What makes tectonic plates separate?

Plates Slide Past One Another Plates grinding past each other in opposite directions create faults called transform faults. Powerful earthquakes often strike along these boundaries. The San Andreas Fault is a transform plate boundary that separates the North American Plate from the Pacific Plate.

Why are there tectonic plates?

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.

What are the 4 types of plate tectonics?

There are four types of boundaries between tectonic plates that are defined by the movement of the plates: divergent and convergent boundaries, transform fault boundaries, and plate boundary zones.

What are 7 tectonic plates?

There are seven major plates: African, Antarctic, Eurasian, Indo-Australian, North American, Pacific and South American. The Hawaiian Islands were created by the Pacific Plate, which is the world’s largest plate at 39,768,522 square miles.