Plate tectonics is the theory that Earth's outer shell is divided into several plates that glide over

the
mantle, the rocky inner layer above the core. The plates act like a hard and rigid shell compared to
Earth's mantle. This strong outer layer is called the lithosphere, which is 100 km (60 miles) thick,
according to Encyclopedia Britannica. The lithosphere includes the crust and outer part of the
mantle. Below the lithosphere is the asthenosphere, which is malleable or partially malleable,
allowing the lithosphere to move around. How it moves around is an evolving
idea.HistoryDeveloped from the 1950s through the 1970s, plate tectonics is the modern version of
continental drift, a theory first proposed by scientist Alfred Wegener in 1912. Wegener didn't have
an explanation for how continents could move around the planet, but researchers do now. Plate
tectonics is the unifying theory of geology, said Nicholas van der Elst, a seismologist at Columbia
University's Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory in Palisades, New York."Before plate tectonics,
people had to come up with explanations of the geologic features in their region that were unique
to that particular region," Van der Elst said. "Plate tectonics unified all these descriptions and said
that you should be able to describe all geologic features as though driven by the relative motion of
these tectonic plates."How many plates are there?There are nine major plates, according to World
Atlas. These plates are named after the landforms found on them. The nine major plates are North
American, Pacific, Eurasian, African, Indo-Australian, Australian, Indian, South American and
Antarctic. The largest plate is the Pacific Plate at 39,768,522 square miles (103,000,000 square
kilometers). Most of it is located under the ocean. It is moving northwest at a speed of around 2.75
inches (7 cm) per year.There are also many smaller plates throughout the world. How plate
tectonics worksThe driving force behind plate tectonics is convection in the mantle. Hot material
near the Earth's core rises, and colder mantle rock sinks. "It's kind of like a pot boiling on a stove,"
Van der Elst said. The convection drive plates tectonics through a combination of pushing and
spreading apart at mid-ocean ridges and pulling and sinking downward at subduction zones,
researchers think. Scientists continue to study and debate the mechanisms that move the
plates.Mid-ocean ridges are gaps between tectonic plates that mantle the Earth like seams on a
baseball. Hot magma wells up at the ridges, forming new ocean crust and shoving the plates apart.
At subduction zones, two tectonic plates meet and one slides beneath the other back into the
mantle, the layer underneath the crust. The cold, sinking plate pulls the crust behind it
downward.Many spectacular volcanoes are found along subduction zones, such as the "Ring of
Fire" that surrounds the Pacific Ocean.Plate boundariesSubduction zones, or convergent margins,
are one of the three types of plate boundaries. The others are divergent and transform margins.At a
divergent margin, two plates are spreading apart, as at seafloor-spreading ridges or continental rift
zones such as the East Africa Rift.Transform margins mark slip-sliding plates, such as California's
San Andreas Fault, where the North America and Pacific plates grind past each other with a
mostly horizontal motion. Reconstructing the pastWhile the Earth is 4.54 billion years old,
because oceanic crust is constantly recycled at subduction zones, the oldest seafloor is only about
200 million years old. The oldest ocean rocks are found in the northwestern Pacific Ocean and the
eastern Mediterranean Sea. Fragments of continental crust are much older, with large chunks at
least 3.8 billion years found in Greenland.With clues left behind in rocks and fossils, geoscientists
can reconstruct the past history of Earth's continents. Most researchers think modern plate
tectonics began about 3 billion years ago, based on ancient magmas and minerals preserved in
rocks from that period. Some believe it could have started a billion years after Earth's birth, at
around 3.5 billion years."We don't really know when plate tectonics as it looks today got started,
but we do know that we have continental crust that was likely scraped off a down-going slab [a
tectonic plate in a subduction zone] that is 3.8 billion years old," Van der Elst said. "We could
guess that means plate tectonics was operating, but it might have looked very different from
today."As the continents jostle around the Earth, they occasionally come together to form giant
supercontinents, a single landmass. One of the earliest big supercontinents, called Rodinia,
assembled about 1 billion years ago. Its breakup is linked to a global glaciation called Snowball
Earth.A more recent supercontinent called Pangaea formed about 300 million years ago. Africa,
South America, North America and Europe nestled closely together, leaving a characteristic
pattern of fossils and rocks for geologists to decipher once Pangaea broke apart. The puzzle pieces
left behind by Pangaea, from fossils to the matching shorelines along the Atlantic Ocean, provided
the first hints that the Earth's continents move.Plates bumping into each other can also cause
mountain ranges. For example, India and Asia came together about 55 million years ago, which
created the Himalaya Mountains, according to National Geographic.In the 20th century,
researchers realized that the Earth's crust is not one piece, but is made up of many huge tectonic
plates upon which the continents ride.In the 20th century, researchers realized that the Earth's crust
is not one piece, but is made up of many huge tectonic plates upon which the continents ride.
Original ImageCredit: by Karl Tate, Infographics ArtistAdditional reporting by Alina Bradford,
Live Science contributorAdditional resourcesScientific American: Earth's Tectonic Activity May
Be Crucial for Life--and Rare in Our GalaxyNature: Earth science- How Plate Tectonics
ClickedBerkley: Plate TectonicsPBS: Plate Tectonics Activity DIY ExperimentEditor's
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