| Rank | Tectonic Plate | Size (Square Km) |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Pacific Plate | 103,300,000 |
| 2 | North American Plate | 75,900,000 |
| 3 | Eurasian Plate | 67,800,000 |
| 4 | African Plate | 61,300,000 |
What major plate is the largest?
There are major, minor and micro tectonic plates. There are seven major plates: African, Antarctic, Eurasian, Indo-Australian, North American, Pacific and South American. The Hawaiian Islands were created by the Pacific Plate, which is the world’s largest plate at 39,768,522 square miles.
What are the 7 minor plates?
You mention the Nazca plate as not being particularly “minor”, and indeed there is an intermediate grouping, normally said to comprise the Arabian Plate, Caribbean Plate, Cocos Plate, Juan de Fuca Plate, Nazca Plate, Philippine Sea Plate, and the Scotia Plate. This is easy to remember because they also number seven!
What are the larger and smaller plates?
Tectonic plates have a large range of sizes and thicknesses. The Pacific Plate is among the largest, while the disappearing Juan De Fuca Plate is one of the smallest. Oceanic crust is much thinner than continental crust, 5 kilometers verses 100 kilometers, relatively.
What are the eight minor plates?
The names of the minor plates are the Scotia plate, the Nazca plate, the Cocos plate, the Carribean plate, the Juan de Fuca, the Arabian plate and lastly the Phillipine plate.
What are the 13 major plates of the world?
There may be scientific consensus as to whether such plates should be considered distinct portions of the crust; thus, new research could change this list.
- African Plate. …
- Antarctic Plate. …
- Australian Plate. …
- Caribbean Plate. …
- Cocos Plate. …
- Eurasian Plate. …
- Nazca Plate. …
- North American Plate.
Which plate do we live on?
We live on a layer of Earth known as the lithosphere which is a collection of rigid slabs that are shifting and sliding into each other. These slabs are called tectonic plates and fit together like pieces to a puzzle.
What are the 14 major plates?
Primary plates
- African plate.
- Antarctic plate.
- Indo-Australian plate.
- North American plate.
- Pacific plate.
- South American plate.
- Eurasian plate.
What is the smallest minor plate?
The Juan de Fuca Plate is the smallest of earth’s tectonic plates. It is approximately 250,000 square kilometers.
What is the difference between minor and major plates?
Major and Minor Tectonic Plates
The seven major plates include the African, Antarctic, Eurasian, North American, South American, India-Australian, and the Pacific plates. Some of the minor plates include the Arabian, Caribbean, Nazca, and Scotia plates. Here is a picture showing the major tectonic plates of the world.
How thick are tectonic plates?
Plates are on average 125km thick, reaching maximum thickness below mountain ranges. Oceanic plates (50-100km) are thinner than the continental plates (up to 200km) and even thinner at the ocean ridges where the temperatures are higher.
What can you say about the Earth’s lithosphere?
The lithosphere is the solid, outer part of the Earth. The lithosphere includes the brittle upper portion of the mantle and the crust, the outermost layers of Earth’s structure. It is bounded by the atmosphere above and the asthenosphere (another part of the upper mantle) below.
How many lithospheric plates exist?
The lithosphere is divided into huge slabs called tectonic plates. There are eight major plates and several smaller plates, including the North American, Caribbean, South American, Scotia, Antarctic, Eurasian, Arabian, African, Indian, Philippine, Australian, Pacific, Juan de Fuca, Cocos, and Nazca plates.
What is the fastest moving plate?
These average rates of plate separations can range widely. The Arctic Ridge has the slowest rate (less than 2.5 cm/yr), and the East Pacific Rise near Easter Island, in the South Pacific about 3,400 km west of Chile, has the fastest rate (more than 15 cm/yr).
What are the 10 minor plates?
The list of Earth’s minor plates includes the Arabian Plate, Caribbean Plate, Cocos Plate, Nazca Plate, Philippine Plate, Scotia Plate, and more. There are also many smaller plates throughout the world.
How many plate tectonics are there in total?
There are seven primary tectonic plates in the world, but there are also seven secondary plates and sixty tertiary plates, for a grand total of more than seventy tectonic plates. Each tectonic plate is approximate 60 miles thick and composed primarily of either continental crust or oceanic crust.