Question

What do you know about the lithospheric plates?

Answer 1

Hint: The lithosphere is the Earth's rigid outermost shell. It is made up of the crust and a portion of the upper mantle that behaves elastically over time scales of thousands of years or more. The crust of a rocky planet is defined by its chemistry and mineralogy. It is the Earth's rigid, rocky outer layer, consisting of the crust and the solid outermost layer of the upper mantle.

Complete answer:
The lithosphere is the Earth's rigid, rocky outer layer, which consists of the crust and the solid uppermost layer of the upper mantle. It is divided into about a dozen separate, rigid blocks or plates. Slow convection currents deep within the mantle, caused by radioactive heating, are thought to cause lateral movements of the plates (and the continents that sit on top of them) at a rate of several inches per year.

The Earth's crust is divided into 13 major and approximately 20 total lithospheric plates. Each lithospheric plate is made up of a layer of the oceanic crust or continental crust that is superficial to an outer layer of the mantle. The word "plate" is misleading. Because Earth is an oblate sphere, lithospheric plates are bent and fractured into curved portions, like peeled portions of an orange.

There are three types of lithospheric plate boundaries. Lithospheric plates move apart at divergent boundaries, resulting in the formation of crust. Lithospheric plates collide at convergent boundaries, causing the crust to be destroyed or uplifted to form mountain chains. Transform faults are formed as a result of lateral movements between lithospheric plates at the sites of plate slippage.

Note: The North American, Caribbean, South American, Scotia, Antarctic, Eurasian, Arabian, African, Indian, Philippine, Australian, Pacific, Juan de Fuca, Cocos, and Nazca plates are among the eight major lithospheric plates. The Pacific Plate, the world's largest plate at 39,768,522 square miles, formed the Hawaiian Islands.