why do plates move
Answers
Answer:
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.
Answer:
National Ocean ServiceNational Oceanic and Atmospheric AdministrationU.S. Department of Commerce
HOME OCEAN FACTS WHAT IS TECTONIC SHIFT?
What is Tectonic Shift?Tectonic shift is the movement of the plates that make up Earth’s crust.
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. 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. This movement is called plate motion, or tectonic shift.
Our planet looks very different from the way it did 250 million years ago, when there was only one continent, called Pangaea, and one ocean, called Panthalassa. As Earth’s mantle heated and cooled over many millennia, the outer crust broke up and commenced the plate motion that continues today.
The huge continent eventually broke apart, creating new and ever-changing land masses and oceans. Have you ever noticed how the east coast of South America looks like it would fit neatly into the west coast of Africa? That’s because it did, millions of years before tectonic shift separated the two great continents.
Earth’s land masses move toward and away from each other at an average rate of about 0.6 inch a year. That’s about the rate that human toenails grow! Some regions, such as coastal California, move quite fast in geological terms — almost two inches a year — relative to the more stable interior of the continental United States. At the “seams” where tectonic plates come in contact, the crustal rocks may grind violently against each other, causing earthquakes and volcano eruptions. The relatively fast movement of the tectonic plates under California explains the
National Ocean ServiceNational Oceanic and Atmospheric AdministrationU.S. Department of Commerce
HOME OCEAN FACTS WHAT IS TECTONIC SHIFT?
What is Tectonic Shift?Tectonic shift is the movement of the plates that make up Earth’s crust.
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. 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. This movement is called plate motion, or tectonic shift.
Our planet looks very different from the way it did 250 million years ago, when there was only one continent, called Pangaea, and one ocean, called Panthalassa. As Earth’s mantle heated and cooled over many millennia, the outer crust broke up and commenced the plate motion that continues today.
The huge continent eventually broke apart, creating new and ever-changing land masses and oceans. Have you ever noticed how the east coast of South America looks like it would fit neatly into the west coast of Africa? That’s because it did, millions of years before tectonic shift separated the two great continents.
Earth’s land masses move toward and away from each other at an average rate of about 0.6 inch a year. That’s about the rate that human toenails grow! Some regions, such as coastal California, move quite fast in geological terms — almost two inches a year — relative to the more stable interior of the continental United States. At the “seams” where tectonic plates come in contact, the crustal rocks may grind violently against each other, causing earthquakes and volcano eruptions. The relatively fast movement of the tectonic plates under California explains the frequent earthquakes that occur there.
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