North American plateThe North American plate is a tectonic plate containing most of North America, Cuba, the Bahamas, extreme northeastern Asia, and parts of Iceland and the Azores. With an area of 76 million km (29 million sq mi), it is the Earth's second largest tectonic plate, behind the Pacific plate (which borders the plate to the west).
Divergent boundaryIn plate tectonics, a divergent boundary or divergent plate boundary (also known as a constructive boundary or an extensional boundary) is a linear feature that exists between two tectonic plates that are moving away from each other. Divergent boundaries within continents initially produce rifts, which eventually become rift valleys. Most active divergent plate boundaries occur between oceanic plates and exist as mid-oceanic ridges.
Juan de Fuca plateThe Juan de Fuca plate or Juan de Fuca microplate is a small oceanictectonic plate (microplate) generated from the Juan de Fuca Ridge that is subducting beneath the northerly portion of the western side of the North American plate at the Cascadia subduction zone. It is named after the explorer of the same name.
Phoenix plateThe Phoenix plate (also known as the Aluk plate or Drake plate) was a tectonic plate that existed during the early Paleozoic through late Cenozoic time. It formed a triple junction with the Izanagi and Farallon plates in the Panthalassa Ocean as early as 410 million years ago, during which time the Phoenix plate was subducting under eastern Gondwana.
Farallon plateThe Farallon plate was an ancient oceanictectonic plate. It formed one of the three main plates of Panthalassa, alongside the Izanagi plate and the Phoenix plate, which were connected by a triple junction. The Farallon plate began subducting under the west coast of the North American plate—then located in modern Utah—as Pangaea broke apart and after the formation of the Pacific plate at the center of the triple junction during the Early Jurassic.
Transform faultA transform fault or transform boundary, is a fault along a plate boundary where the motion is predominantly horizontal. It ends abruptly where it connects to another plate boundary, either another transform, a spreading ridge, or a subduction zone. A transform fault is a special case of a strike-slip fault that also forms a plate boundary.
Plate tectonicsMovement of Earth's lithosphereMap of Earth's 16 principal tectonic platesConvergent: Collision zone Subduction zoneDivergent: Extension zone Spreading centreTransform: Dextral transform Sinistral transformPlate tectonics (from Latin tectonicus, from Ancient Greek τεκτονικός (tektonikós) 'pertaining to building') is the scientific theory that Earth's lithosphere comprises a number of large tectonic plates, which have been slowly moving since 3–4 billion years ago.
Izanagi plateThe Izanagi plate (named after the Shinto god Izanagi) was an ancient tectonic plate, which began subducting beneath the Okhotsk plate 130–100 Ma (million years ago). The rapid plate motion of the Izanagi plate caused northwest Japan and the outer zone of southwest Japan to drift northward.
Pacific OceanLargest ocean on EarthThe Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest of Earth's five oceanic divisions. It stretches from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Southern Ocean, or, depending on the definition, to Antarctica in the south, and is bounded by the continents of Asia and Australia in the west and the Americas in the east.
Hotspot (geology)In geology, hotspots (or hot spots) are volcanic locales thought to be fed by underlying mantle that is anomalously hot compared with the surrounding mantle. Examples include the Hawaii, Iceland, and Yellowstone hotspots. A hotspot's position on the Earth's surface is independent of tectonic plate boundaries, and so hotspots may create a chain of volcanoes as the plates move above them. There are two hypotheses that attempt to explain their origins.
Drake PassageThe Drake Passage or Sea of Hoces (Mar de Hoces) is the body of water between Cape Horn in Chile at the southern extreme of the South American mainland and the South Shetland Islands of Antarctica. It connects the southwestern part of the Atlantic Ocean (Scotia Sea) with the southeastern part of the Pacific Ocean. The passage is named after the 16th-century English explorer and privateerSir Francis Drake.
Hawaiian IslandsThe Hawaiian Islands (Hawaiian: Mokupuni Hawaiʻi) are an archipelago of eight major volcanic islands, several atolls, and numerous smaller islets in the North Pacific Ocean, extending some 1,500 miles (2,400 kilometers) from the island of Hawaiʻi in the south to northernmost Kure Atoll. Formerly called the Sandwich Islands, the present name for the archipelago is derived from the name of its largest island, Hawaiʻi. The archipelago sits on the Pacific Plate.*As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.