Summarize the active, moving nature of the earth's crust, especially with regard to tectonic plates.

What will be an ideal response?


The crust sits on a layer of cooled magma and moves as a result of convection currents. The crust is not a single unit, but broken into approximately a dozen tectonic plates. These plates carry the continents and the oceans like slow, huge bumper cars. Where the plates collide, a continental plate usually rides up over the oceanic plate creating a subduction zone. The subducted plate moves deeper into the magma and is recycled. At the place where plates move apart, the magma flows up through cracks that are present, forming valleys and oceanic ridges. Where plates grind against each other as they move, earthquakes are common. When continental plates collide, mountain chains are formed along the contact boundary.

Environmental & Atmospheric Sciences

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