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Concept
Plate tectonics
Summary
Plate tectonics (from the tectonicus, from the τεκτονικός) is the scientific theory that Earth's lithosphere comprises a number of large tectonic plates which have been slowly moving since about 3.4 billion years ago. The model builds on the concept of continental drift, an idea developed during the first decades of the 20th century. Plate tectonics came to be accepted by geoscientists after seafloor spreading was validated in the mid-to-late 1960s.
Earth's lithosphere, which is the rigid outermost shell of the planet (the crust and upper mantle), is broken into seven or eight major plates (depending on how they are defined) and many minor plates or "platelets". Where the plates meet, their relative motion determines the type of plate boundary: convergent, divergent, or transform. Earthquakes, volcanic activity, mountain-building, and oceanic trench formation occur along these plate boundaries (or faults). The relative movement of the plates typically ranges from zero to 10 cm annually.
Tectonic plates are composed of the oceanic lithosphere and the thicker continental lithosphere, each topped by its own kind of crust. Along convergent plate boundaries, the process of subduction, or of one plate moving under another, carries the edge of one plate down under the other plate and into the mantle. This process reduces the total surface area (crust) of the Earth. The lost surface is balanced by the formation of new oceanic crust along divergent margins by seafloor spreading. In this way, the total surface area of the lithosphere remains constant. This process of plate tectonics is also referred to as the conveyor belt principle.
Tectonic plates are able to move because Earth's lithosphere has greater mechanical strength than the underlying asthenosphere. Lateral density variations in the mantle result in convection, that is, the slow creeping motion of Earth's solid mantle. Plate movement is driven by a combination of the motion of the seafloor away from spreading ridges due to variations in topography, the ridge being a topographic high, and density changes in the crust, caused by density increasing as newly-formed crust cools and moves away from the ridge.
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