Question No.

Plate tectonics:
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.

Plate tectonics, theory dealing with the dynamics of Earth’s outer

shell—the lithosphere—that revolutionized Earth sciences by
providing a uniform context for understanding mountain-building
processes, volcanoes, and earthquakes as well as the evolution of
Earth’s surface and reconstructing its past continents and oceans.
The concept of plate tectonics was formulated in the 1960s. According
to the theory, Earth has a rigid outer layer, known as the lithosphere,
which is typically about 100 km (60 miles) thick and overlies a plastic
(moldable, partially molten) layer called the asthenosphere. The
lithosphere is broken up into seven very large continental- and ocean-
sized plates, six or seven medium-sized regional plates, and several
small ones. These plates move relative to each other, typically at rates
of 5 to 10 cm (2 to 4 inches) per year, and interact along their
boundaries, where they converge, diverge, or slip past one another.
Such interactions are thought to be responsible for most of Earth’s
seismic and volcanic activity, although earthquakes and volcanoes can
occur in plate interiors. Plate motions cause mountains to rise where
plates push together, or converge, and continents to fracture and
oceans to form where plates pull apart, or diverge. The continents are
embedded in the plates and drift passively with them, which over
millions of years results in significant changes in Earth’s geography.
The theory of plate tectonics is based on a broad synthesis of geologic
and geophysical data. It is now almost universally accepted, and its
adoption represents a true scientific revolution, analogous in its
consequences to quantum mechanics in physics or the discovery of
the genetic code in biology. Incorporating the much older idea
of continental drift, as well as the concept of seafloor spreading, the
theory of plate tectonics has provided an overarching framework in
which to describe the past geography of continents and oceans, the
processes controlling creation and destruction of landforms, and the
evolution of Earth’s crust, atmosphere, biosphere, hydrosphere,
and climates. During the late 20th and early 21st centuries, it became
apparent that plate-tectonic processes profoundly influence
the composition of Earth’s atmosphere and oceans, serve as a prime
cause of long-term climate change, and make significant contributions
to the chemical and physical environment in which life evolves.

Explanation to the formation of plates:

Earth’s tectonic plates may have taken as long as 1 billion years to form,
researchers report today in Nature.

The plates — interlocking slabs of crust that float on Earth’s viscous upper
mantle — were created by a process similar to the subduction seen today
when one plate dives below another, the report says.

Starting roughly 4 billion years ago, cooler parts of Earth’s crust were pulled
downwards into the warmer upper mantle, damaging and weakening the
surrounding crust. The process happened again and again, the authors say,
until the weak areas formed plate boundaries. Other researchers have
estimated that a global tectonic plate system emerged around 3 billion years
ago.

The finding offers a possible answer to an enduring puzzle in geology: how

Earth’s tectonic plates emerged. The subsequent movement of the plates has
erased much of the evidence of their origin, says Paul Tackley, a geophysicist
at Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) in Zurich, Switzerland.

Prior studies suggested the age of the plates, based on evidence of

subduction gathered from minerals preserved in ancient rocks. The oldest
such specimens are 4-billion-year-old zircons found in the Jack Hills of
Australia, which appear to have formed at temperatures and pressures that
are indicative of subduction.
Grains of time
To go a step further and investigate how the plates formed, the study’s
authors developed a computer model of Earth’s crust as it may have existed
billions of years ago, on the basis of mineral grains found in mantle rock. The
model included a low-pressure zone at the base of the crust, which caused a
piece of the crust to sink into the upper mantle — mimicking conditions
thought to have occurred early in Earth’s history.

As the process repeated over time, it created a large tectonic plate with an
active subduction zone. Over a much longer period, the same process could
have created many tectonic plates, says co-author David Bercovici, a
geophysicist at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut. “We’ve got a
physical mechanism to explain how it could have happened,” he says.

This stands in contrast to conditions on Venus, where similar subduction

occurs but has not produced tectonic plates. Conditions on Venus are much
warmer, allowing the crust to better heal after a piece sinks down into the
mantle. Bercovici’s model suggests that early subduction created weak spots
in Earth’s crust that are now plate boundaries. Plate tectonics is defined by
the idea that strong plates are separated by weak boundaries, and action at
those boundaries creates geological phenomena such as volcanoes,
mountains and earthquakes, he notes.

“They produce a model that plausibly explains what we see,” says Michael
Brown, a petrologist at the University of Maryland in College Park. It shows
how to start subduction and how that could have progressed to global
tectonics, and it provides an amount of time between the two — 1 billion years
— that is consistent with the rock record, he adds.

Robert Stern, a geologist at the University of Texas in Dallas, contends that

there is no firm evidence of plate tectonics earlier than 1 billion years ago, but
says that their theory of the mechanism behind plate formation is “the first
interesting example of how it might have occurred”.

Principles Of Plate Tectonics

In essence, plate-tectonic theory is elegantly simple. Earth’s surface
layer, 50 to 100 km (30 to 60 miles) thick, is rigid and is composed of
a set of large and small plates. Together, these
plates constitute the lithosphere, from the Greek lithos, meaning
“rock.” The lithosphere rests on and slides over an underlying partially
molten (and thus weaker but generally denser) layer of plastic partially
molten rock known as the asthenosphere, from the Greek asthenos,
meaning “weak.” Plate movement is possible because the lithosphere-
asthenosphere boundary is a zone of detachment. As the lithospheric
plates move across Earth’s surface, driven by forces as yet not fully
understood, they interact along their boundaries, diverging,
converging, or slipping past each other. While the interiors of the
plates are presumed to remain essentially undeformed, plate
boundaries are the sites of many of the principal processes that shape
the terrestrial surface, including earthquakes, volcanism,
and orogeny (that is, formation of mountain ranges).
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

THE PLATES
     Simplistically, the earth consists of the plates, and plate boundaries, those zones where the
plates contact and interact. Observe that 7 different plates are labeled in the cross section. Plates
are combinations of two units, continents and ocean basins. A plate may be an ocean basin alone,
or a continent alone, or a combination of ocean basin+continent (common).
      It is possible a plate could be a continent alone, but for this to occur all edges of the continent
would have to be a plate boundary (very rare, perhaps not practically possible). Note that in the
cross section several different ocean basin/continent combinations are present, but that it is
difficult to get a continent with all plate boundaries.

PLATE BOUNDARIES
     The three kinds of plate boundaries are also illustrated in the cross section, divergent,
convergent, and transform. Plate interact at these boundaries.
     Two divergent margins (plate boundaries) are present in the cross section, one labeled as
such to the right of the continental craton, and the other on the left side. The left side divergent
margin is labeled Back Arc (Marginal) Basin. Back arc basins are formed by minor convection
cells above subduction zones. Divergent plate boundaries always create new ocean floor (that is,
new oceanic lithosphere, called the ophiolite suite).
     Three convergent boundaries are present, all of them one way or another involving
a subduction zone. In the continent-continent collision the subduction zone is now extinct but
can be seen below the surface. Subduction zones generate lots of igneous magma that rises to the
surface to form volcanic mountains (volcanic arcs; also island arcs). The igneous batholiths that
feed the volcanoes are the beginning of generation of new continental crust. Continents are
created above subduction zones as small proto- and microcontinents. They enlarge by colliding
and fusing together, or suturing onto a larger continent, at a convergent plate boundary.
      At convergent boundaries oceanic lithosphere is always destroyed by descending into a
subduction zone. This is because oceanic rock is heavy, compared to the continents, and sinks
easily. Because oceanic lithosphere is created and destroyed so easily ocean basins are young;
the oldest we have is only about 200 million years old. Continents, on the other hand, composed
of light weight rock never subducts. Thus, continental rock once formed is more or less
permanent; the oldest continental fragment is 3.9 billion years old, virtually as old as the earth
itself.
     Only one transform boundary is present, on the left side of the drawing. At transform
boundaries two plates just slide past one another horizontally, and quietly compared to
convergent and divergent plate boundaries. Most of these are found in the ocean basins, but the
San Andreas fault in California and Mexico is an example coming on land.

PLATE COLLISIONS
    The essence of plate tectonic theory is that the plates (ocean basins plus or minus continents)
slide around over the earth surface, interacting as they do at the plate boundaries. Thus, any time
there is a divergent plate boundary where two plates are separating, there must be a convergent
plate boundary (subduction zone) where the earth comes together again. And convergent
boundaries always, eventually, lead to collisions between continents, or continents and terranes
(island arcs plus or minus microcontinents). Observe the subduction zones in the cross section.
Next to each one is a remnant ocean basin (ROB). An ROB is one that is disappearing down a
subduction zone; it is a remnant of its former self. But all subduction zones must eventually
disappear completely and when they do the floating blocks on either side will collide, and create
a mountain range. The continent-continent collision in the cross section is a case where the
collision has already occurred.