The Logo and Seal of the Freie Universität BerlinFreie Universität Berlin

Department of Earth Sciences


Service Navigation

  • Homepage
  • Contact
  • Legal Notice
  • Sitemap
  • Glossary
  • Literature
Information about data transfer when using Google Search™
Department of Earth Sciences/

GeoLearning - e-Learning in the Environmental and Geosciences

Start 
  • Overview
  • Mountain Building
  • Gondwana
  • GR to Climate Change
  • Watershed Management
Mountain Building 
  • Principal Objectives
  • Introduction
  • Magmatism
  • Metamorphism
  • Plate Boundaries
  • Resources
  • Mountains Breakup
Plate Boundaries 
  • Distribution of Plate Boundaries
  • Plate boundaries: divergent
  • Plate Boundaries: convergent
  • Plate Boundaries: transform
  • Types of Deformation
  • Folds
  • Faults
  • Excercise Plate tectonics
Distribution of Plate Boundaries

Breadcrumbs Navigation

  • Homepage
  • GeoLearning
  • Mountain Building
  • Plate Boundaries
  • Distribution of Plate Boundaries

Distribution of Plate Boundaries

Plates1
Major plate boundaries
Image Credit: MBG
table2
Major continental and oceanic plates, their extension and growth rates
Image Credit: Anderson (1987)
Santorini
Santorini Volcano (Greece), part of the Eurasian continental plate
Image Credit: MBG
assekrem
Volcanic neck, Assekrem Plateau (Algeria), African Plate
Image Credit: MBG
rockys_copy
Mt. Kidd, Canadian Rocky Mountains Thrust Belt, North American plat
Image Credit: C. Heubeck

In addition to the nine large plates listed, there are approximately another three dozens of smaller plates or microplates, such as Okhotsk, Amur,  Okinawa, Caribbean, Molucca Sea, Banda Sea, Timor, Birds Head, Maoke, Caroline, Mariana, North Bismarck, Manus, South Bismarck, Solomon Sea, Woodlark, New Hebrides, Conway Reef, Balmoral Reef, Futuna, Niuafo’ou, Tonga, Kermadec, Rivera, Galápagos, Easter, Juan Fernandez, Panama, North Andes,  Shetland, Sandwich, Aegean Sea and Anatolia.

Volcanically and seimically active continental regions such as the Alpine-Himalyan mountain belt, the Philippine Islands, the Peruvian Andes, the Sierras Pampeanas, or the western U.S. are better designated as orogens rather than plates or microplates.

Service Navigation

  • Homepage
  • Contact
  • Legal Notice
  • Sitemap
  • Glossary
  • Literature

This Page

  • Print
  • Subscribe RSS-Feed